Arizona Congresswoman Shot; Federal Judge and 9-Year-Old Killed

First blood libel, then pogrom? Dude, are they TRYING to get my Jewish side all ragey?

It's probably a sort of snide final verbal stab. Why is it that people like him always claim that they're the ones being oppressed?

Selenite wrote:

It's probably a sort of snide final verbal stab. Why is it that people like him always claim that they're the ones being oppressed?

It's known as victim mentality, and it's actually fairly common in middle-class and lower-middle class white men. It's a combination of total ignorance about anything but the way they were raised (which is the only right way), and a complete lack of desire to learn anything since they graduated from high school (if they graduated at all)

Their thinking goes something like this: Yeah, the Holocaust was a horrible thing, but it's not like it happened last week, and the Jews are still using it as a trump card whenever anyone says something they don't like. Because it's not like having your entire family back to the fourth of fifth generation wiped out leaves lasting scars. Hell no, they should just suck it up.

And anyway, it's their own fault for being Jews, because everyone knows Jesus really was the Messiah, and they didn't believe it, so any problems they have is God punishing them for refusing to accept Jesus as the Messiah (don't laugh, I had someone tell me that in all seriousness). Totally ignoring the fact that Jesus considered himself a Jew. The word 'Christian' didn't come into connotation as a follower of Christ till probably several hundred years after His death. He considered himself a Jew, and most of his apostles came from Jewish families as well.

This is something that Christians conveniently ignore.

The point is, people like this have to have someone to denegrate so they can feel better about themselves. It used to be blacks, but then Civil Rights came along and they couldn't call blacks niggers anymore and make jokes about watermelon. So they had to find someone else to hate, because if they don't have someone to hate, they have to think about what sorry, pitiful little lives they live, stuck inside their neat little row houses with their guns, and there's a black man running the white house and Jews in Congress, and other foreign people (because all foreign people are evil, though many of these people are descended from foreigners who came to the United States in the mid-late 1800s. But they were WHITE foreign people (Poles, Irish, English and German, Danish and the like). None of them wetbacks and rag-heads you get now, who refuse to learn the language and try to fit in and insist on hanging onto their culture (while the Irish in Chicago hold their annual Saint Paddy's Day parade every year).

In other words, things haven't gone right for these people since women were given the vote. If we could just go back to, say, the early 1800s, when black people were still slaves, and women knew their place, and politics was full of nothing but white men (ignoring that a good portion of the white men were, in fact, fairly wealthy by the standard of their era) and you could shoot someone you didn't like because they were looking at your daughter the wrong way. Those, for them, were the golden days. Kind of like Older British sometimes long for the day when the Queen actually ruled something besides several small countries and the sun never set on the empire.

Trust me, there are lots of them where I live (they're the one's bitching at me for using the Handicapped parking spaces because I can walk from my car to the front door, so how can I be handicapped?). They're the ones who are upset that they have to wait two days for a background check before they can buy a gun. They're the ones who drive huge, gas-guzzling 4x4s with bumper stickers that say COUNTRY PROUD, despite the fact the closest most of them have ever been to the country is when they drive to Des Moines to spend Christmas with Grandma.

They want what they can't have, they're miserable about it, and by God, if THEY'VE got to be miserable, so does everyone else.

Rabid Badger wrote:

Selenite wrote:

It's probably a sort of snide final verbal stab. Why is it that people like him always claim that they're the ones being oppressed?

It's known as victim mentality, and it's actually fairly common in middle-class and lower-middle class white men everyone.

FTFY

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Their thinking goes something like this: Yeah, the Holocaust was a horrible thing, but it's not like it happened last week, and the Jews are still using it as a trump card whenever anyone says something they don't like. Because it's not like having your entire family back to the fourth of fifth generation wiped out leaves lasting scars. Hell no, they should just suck it up.

Plus, they killed our lord!

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But they were WHITE foreign people (Poles, Irish, English and German, Danish and the like). None of them wetbacks and rag-heads you get now, who refuse to learn the language and try to fit in and insist on hanging onto their culture (while the Irish in Chicago hold their annual Saint Paddy's Day parade every year).

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You know, there was a period where Irish immigrants were used in favor of slaves in incredibly dangerous jobs because if they kicked off, there was no monetary loss, and they worked just as hard, because nobody else would hire the damn papists. Buuut well you know, white people can't be victims of racism.

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They're the ones who are upset that they have to wait two days for a background check before they can buy a gun.

Well, it is a pretty stupid law. There's no evidence that making someone wait for X period of time will make them less determined to kill someone, while someone who needs protection on short notice (like, say, a woman being threatened repeatedly by someone she has a restraining order against) is required to be vulnerable.

But in general I don't disagree with what you've said.

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You know, there was a period where Irish immigrants were used in favor of slaves in incredibly dangerous jobs because if they kicked off, there was no monetary loss, and they worked just as hard, because nobody else would hire the damn papists. Buuut well you know, white people can't be victims of racism

I know people who say, unironically, "My ancestors were Irish, I know what discrimination feels like."

Also: look up Irish American discrimination, you'll find a shit-ton of depressingly stupid people.

From a Yahoo! Answers question of why the Irish hate Irish-Americans...

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Well. One reason is Irish are very jealous as you said. Another being that they still live in Ireland while Irish-Americans have the luxury of living in the greatest city in the world New York, like myself a German-American.

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I think Irish are just upset that theyre stuck over on Ireland, forced to be England's b**ch and made jokes of by the rest of Europe. I work with some off the boat Irish they are much different, they have no respect for women at all and are very dirty, I don't consider that tough by any means. Irish Americans on the other hand are more like Old School New Yorkers, they will beat your a-- down if you say the wrong thing. Irish Americans are much tougher then Irish Immigrants, trust me.

As opposed to what I believe is the right answer, which is, they think Irish Americans are ridiculous asshats with gads of unwarranted self-importance. See also: Plastic Paddy.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Also: look up Irish American discrimination, you'll find a shit-ton of depressingly stupid people.

I think I'd rather not; it's a Saturday and I'm hung over. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Mr.Doobie wrote:

From a Yahoo! Answers question of why the Irish hate Irish-Americans...

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Well. One reason is Irish are very jealous as you said. Another being that they still live in Ireland while Irish-Americans have the luxury of living in the greatest city in the world New York, like myself a German-American.

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I think Irish are just upset that theyre stuck over on Ireland, forced to be England's b**ch and made jokes of by the rest of Europe. I work with some off the boat Irish they are much different, they have no respect for women at all and are very dirty, I don't consider that tough by any means. Irish Americans on the other hand are more like Old School New Yorkers, they will beat your a-- down if you say the wrong thing. Irish Americans are much tougher then Irish Immigrants, trust me.

As opposed to what I believe is the right answer, which is, they think Irish Americans are ridiculous asshats with gads of unwarranted self-importance.

Speaking as someone who's actually Irish, I think calling yourself "Irish American" (or worse, just "Irish") after about five generations is kinda stupid. Especially if your parents, grandparents etc. didn't exclusively marry into that community, and the only vestige of your "Irishness" is getting shitfaced on "St. Patty's Day", which you insist on spelling wrong because you can't tell the difference between "tt" and "dd" because of your accent. Sorry white Americans, but there's a point at which the "American" part of your heritage eclipses what your ancestors were.

I will agree with Spotts and say that the Washington Times is a joke.

Now, as for Palin...she just needs to shut the hell up, because everything she says makes it worse. She's comparing getting called some mean names to having your people be the victims of genocide.

That's extremely disproportionate, to say the least, and really only drives home the point of why she should never hold public office. She has no sense of empathy. She has no idea what it's liked to have real hatred expressed to you because of something you can't control, like your ethnicity, and she thinks that her experience of people not liking her because she's a moron can compare. What really bothers me is that her fan base will agree too.

On the actual subject, the Congresswoman opened her eyes recently, on the day of the memorial. She also reportedly grabbed at her husband's hand. So it would appear that she might recover. I don't know what the effects will be, if she'll ever be who she was, but the fact that she woke up is a good sign, her doctors said.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Mr.Doobie wrote:

From a Yahoo! Answers question of why the Irish hate Irish-Americans...

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Well. One reason is Irish are very jealous as you said. Another being that they still live in Ireland while Irish-Americans have the luxury of living in the greatest city in the world New York, like myself a German-American.

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I think Irish are just upset that theyre stuck over on Ireland, forced to be England's b**ch and made jokes of by the rest of Europe. I work with some off the boat Irish they are much different, they have no respect for women at all and are very dirty, I don't consider that tough by any means. Irish Americans on the other hand are more like Old School New Yorkers, they will beat your a-- down if you say the wrong thing. Irish Americans are much tougher then Irish Immigrants, trust me.

As opposed to what I believe is the right answer, which is, they think Irish Americans are ridiculous asshats with gads of unwarranted self-importance.

Speaking as someone who's actually Irish, I think calling yourself "Irish American" (or worse, just "Irish") after about five generations is kinda stupid. Especially if your parents, grandparents etc. didn't exclusively marry into that community, and the only vestige of your "Irishness" is getting shitfaced on "St. Patty's Day", which you insist on spelling wrong because you can't tell the difference between "tt" and "dd" because of your accent. Sorry white Americans, but there's a point at which the "American" part of your heritage eclipses what your ancestors were.

This. People sometimes ask me what I am. I say I'm an American. Yes, they reply, but what kind? An American, I repeat. My dad has been fascinated by genealogy for years, so I know that I am descended from many ethnic groups (yes, including Irish). So, which ethnic group am I supposed to choose? I won't go with a racial group, either, because although I have light skin and blue eyes, there's African, Arab, Hispanic, and Native American in my ancestry, too. Therefore, I see no reason to try to define myself as anything other than American. That's where I was born, that's where I've lived all my life, and though I've been outside of the country, I'm still a U.S. citizen.

Lapin wrote:

That's extremely disproportionate, to say the least, and really only drives home the point of why she should never hold public office. She has no sense of empathy. She has no idea what it's liked to have real hatred expressed to you because of something you can't control, like your ethnicity, and she thinks that her experience of people not liking her because she's a moron can compare. What really bothers me is that her fan base will agree too.

That's the thing - a lot of commentators said that she had a great chance to show how "Presidential" she could be by:

1) stating unequivocally that she should not be held responsible for the acts of the shooter, but

2) admitting that the level of discourse has gotten out of hand, and challenging all sides to lower the vitriol and the anger (herself included)

Instead, she chose to make it all about her and lost the argument.

But this is not new - whenever possible Mrs. Palin throws someone else in front of her to take the blame or give her reason to scream she's a victim too. The one I remember is when she dropped the puck at a Philadelphia Flyers game. She admitted that she took her youngest daughter Piper with her onto the ice because "they wouldn't boo Piper!" They did (it's Philadelphia - they boo just about everything that moves), and it gave her an opening to wail about how mean Pennsylvania Democrats are towards her family.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Mr.Doobie wrote:

From a Yahoo! Answers question of why the Irish hate Irish-Americans...

Quote :

Well. One reason is Irish are very jealous as you said. Another being that they still live in Ireland while Irish-Americans have the luxury of living in the greatest city in the world New York, like myself a German-American.

Quote :

I think Irish are just upset that theyre stuck over on Ireland, forced to be England's b**ch and made jokes of by the rest of Europe. I work with some off the boat Irish they are much different, they have no respect for women at all and are very dirty, I don't consider that tough by any means. Irish Americans on the other hand are more like Old School New Yorkers, they will beat your a-- down if you say the wrong thing. Irish Americans are much tougher then Irish Immigrants, trust me.

As opposed to what I believe is the right answer, which is, they think Irish Americans are ridiculous asshats with gads of unwarranted self-importance.

Speaking as someone who's actually Irish, I think calling yourself "Irish American" (or worse, just "Irish") after about five generations is kinda stupid. Especially if your parents, grandparents etc. didn't exclusively marry into that community, and the only vestige of your "Irishness" is getting shitfaced on "St. Patty's Day", which you insist on spelling wrong because you can't tell the difference between "tt" and "dd" because of your accent. Sorry white Americans, but there's a point at which the "American" part of your heritage eclipses what your ancestors were.

Shappi Khorsandi often makes that gag that her son is half Pakistani Iranian and half Irish, and she's looking forward to when he's old enough to venture into America alone, just so she can see the confusion when people won't know whether to arrest him or pretend to be related to him.

Spotts1701 wrote:

Saleha wrote:

How is it possible that people using this kind of utterly braindead and thoroughly offensive rhetoric are taken at all seriously? I. Don't. Get. It.

To be fair, very few people take the "Moonie" Times seriously (their daily circulation is less than 1/10 of the Washington Post, and they are regarded at the same journalistic level as a poor college newspaper).

Not to imply that what they do say doesn't prove they are either the biggest bunch of bunco artists or sociopaths around. They just benefit from being the second "pet paper" of the wingnut fringe as their drivel gets magnified far beyond reason.

It would be interesting what percentage of their readers/fans are conservative Christians given that dear old batty Reverend Moon has claimed he is the Messiah and that he's more important than Jesus.

Snake Bandage wrote:

First blood libel, then pogrom? Dude, are they TRYING to get my Jewish side all ragey?

In all honesty, with their level of privilege, I think they genuinely believe that this is what persecution is like. They don't actually know that people criticising them is different from thousands of years of persecution based on race alone, because they're too privileged to have ever experienced anything like that.

Oh, here we go...

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A man who was shot but survived last Saturday's massacre in Tucson, Arizona, was taken to a county mental services unit Saturday after making a threatening comment at a town hall event, Pima County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jason Ogan said.

James Eric Fuller, 63, was involuntarily committed after he made threats against a Tea Party member at the Tucson event sponsored by ABC News, Ogan said.

And the right-wing pundits are already cranking out the outrage that liberals are hypocrites.

I understand his frustration. The guy took two bullets (one in the back, one in the leg). But really? You just had to go and do this?

Why do I get the feeling that they were desperate for something like this. When people initially assumed that the Arizona killer was a teabagger, it wasn't blind hatred of the poor, defenseless right but an overall perception that teabaggers and rightwingers in general are violent.

It's not the left who have militias and have talking heads just shy of screaming for murder of the opposition.

You know, if people thought Sarah Palin was only in politics because she craved attention, we must be delivering her dream come true.

Spotts1701 wrote:

Oh, here we go...

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A man who was shot but survived last Saturday's massacre in Tucson, Arizona, was taken to a county mental services unit Saturday after making a threatening comment at a town hall event, Pima County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jason Ogan said.

James Eric Fuller, 63, was involuntarily committed after he made threats against a Tea Party member at the Tucson event sponsored by ABC News, Ogan said.

And the right-wing pundits are already cranking out the outrage that liberals are hypocrites.

I understand his frustration. The guy took two bullets (one in the back, one in the leg). But really? You just had to go and do this?

Read a little farther down the page:

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Humphries told CNN that Fuller's comment came when the town hall discussion turned toward the issue of gun control. (my emphasis)

Do you suppose Mr. Fuller became upset because the Tea Partiers are speaking in favor of controlling access to handguns more tightly? Gee, I wonder.

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the right-wing pundits are already cranking out the outrage that liberals are hypocrites.

That's the bit I love most. Guy "on the left's side" makes threats, and something's done (something fucked up, I grant you) to remove him from the situation. Dipshit wingnuts spout wall-to-wall violent rhetoric, and then wail when anyone so much as suggests that maybe they shouldn't do that shit when they know damn well that their listeners are stupid and fearful.

Can you imagine the uproar if some left-wing group, blog or network displayed an image of a right-wing media figure with a gunsight over his mouth and a caption involving the words "target", "end" or "fire"? Do you think those fuckers at Fox News would buy an explanation like "it's a metaphor for boycotting that guy! That's not a gunsight, it just represents his mouth being shut!" Course they wouldn't.

The non-wingnut media need to stop pretending that the left and the right pull this shit equally all the time and start calling out the wingnuts for the irresponsible jackasses they are. And the Democrats need to stop this bipartisan bullshit and realise the fucking Republicans aren't interested in doing anything except obfusticate.

Wow... We're the Face of Satan, guys! Who knew?

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The hatred directed at her is mindless, it is baseless, it is utterly irrational, and it is disturbing to an alarming degree. When we look into the face of the unvarnished and seething meanness focused on Ms. Palin, we are looking into the face of evil. We are looking into the face of Satan himself, who is the ultimate source of this vitriol and toxic hate.

Phelps disagrees, he says that "Toxic hate" = "God's love". Care to engage with that, fella?

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We are witnessing unvarnished demonic evil on full display, without decoration, without refinement, without cover. It does not even pretend to be anything other than pure homicidal rage and hate.

Again, Fred Phelps... I'm not really seeing loonie lefties in this discription...

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It shows us what we are up against in our civil war over cultural values,

No... YOUR Civil War over cultural values. The rest of us are simply trying to expand and progress cultural values.

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and reveals the malicious invective that is constantly directed at Ms. Palin and her family.

Well, if she didn't make it so easy for us to make fun of her, then we wouldn't do it so much, would we?

Hay, look at that, two arguments in one sentence that suggests that it's your viewpoint that could do with a little adjustment.

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For those of us who believe in the existence of Satan, as Christ clearly did, then this is a sobering reminder that we battle not just against flesh and blood, as the apostle reminds us in Ephesians 6, but against the “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

So... You're not against Obama, par-se, but you're against any evil spirits that have affected him...

Tell you what: How about if we put the President through an exorcism? Then you can try and understand that viewpoints opposing your own come from alternative ways of thinking rather than being the work of the devil. That way, you can engage with the topics at hand, rather than refusing to do so, because they're the devil's work?

Good news - Rep. Giffords is continuing to improve.

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U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is doing well after two surgeries this weekend: a tracheotomy and a repair to fractures in the right eye, doctors at University Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz., said at a news conference on Monday.

"The next major step is the graduation to rehabilitation," said UMC neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Lemole. As for the next milestone, it's "the day she leaves this hospital. That's her graduation; then she moves on to rehabilitation.

"It could be a matter of days to weeks," Lemole continued.

Bad news - the top count of the federal indictment against Jared Loughner (murder of a federal judge), which is central to any federal trial at all, may not be sustainable.

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Under federal law, the murder or attempted murder of a U.S. official, such as a judge, is only considered a federal crime if committed "while such officer or employee is engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties." In other words, if Roll simply stopped by the event to greet Giffords, who he's said to have been friendly with, or due to idle curiosity about what was happening there, his killing probably wouldn't be a federal offense.

^
Is the Representative not considered a federal official herself?

Or does she count as a state official, because they're elected only by people within their state?

Also, why the hell does it matter? Can't they piece together a death penalty case off the premeditated murder of six people?

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

^
Is the Representative not considered a federal official herself?

Or does she count as a state official, because they're elected only by people within their state?

Also, why the hell does it matter? Can't they piece together a death penalty case off the premeditated murder of six people?

She is a federal official, but they can only get him for attempted murder on her. They might try to make a case using the aide's murder as a federal crime.

Otherwise, they'd have to kick it back to the state court. Without a federal official being murdered in performance of their duties, there is no federal murder case against him. Just the state murder case, which they can take up after any federal trial is concluded (like they did with Terry Nichols in Oklahoma City).

Spotts1701 wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Also, why the hell does it matter? Can't they piece together a death penalty case off the premeditated murder of six people?

She is a federal official, but they can only get him for attempted murder on her. They might try to make a case using the aide's murder as a federal crime.

Otherwise, they'd have to kick it back to the state court.

Were they to kick it back to Arizona's courts, it's more likely the death penalty would be recommended. In the Federal court, it's not as sure.

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The hatred directed at her is mindless, it is baseless, it is utterly irrational, and it is disturbing to an alarming degree. When we look into the face of the unvarnished and seething meanness focused on Ms. Palin, we are looking into the face of evil. We are looking into the face of Satan himself, who is the ultimate source of this vitriol and toxic hate.

What the fuck happened in Tucson, Arizona? This is all about Sarah Palin.

Spotts1701 wrote:

Bad news - the top count of the federal indictment against Jared Loughner (murder of a federal judge), which is central to any federal trial at all, may not be sustainable.

Quote :

Under federal law, the murder or attempted murder of a U.S. official, such as a judge, is only considered a federal crime if committed "while such officer or employee is engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties." In other words, if Roll simply stopped by the event to greet Giffords, who he's said to have been friendly with, or due to idle curiosity about what was happening there, his killing probably wouldn't be a federal offense.

Well darn. I mean, he'll still go to prison, but that's still a bit disappointing.