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U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was wounded today in an assassination attempt that killed at least 5 others, including a 9 year old girl and a Federal Judge. The Judge, John Roll, was a Republican appointed to the bench by President George H. W. Bush. Congresswoman Gifford is a Democrat.
I think Arizona's Senior Senator said it best:
Whoever did this, whatever their reason, they are a disgrace to Arizona, this country and the human race, and they deserve and will receive the contempt of all decent people and the strongest punishment of the law.
Yes, Senator... they are a disgrace and they have my complete contempt. I have never heard of Rep. Giffords until today. I am saddened and outraged by this senseless tragedy. I believe the Right to Life extends to Democratic Members of Congress, the unborn, Bedouin Tribesmen in Iraq, drug users (who all to often wind up dead in "police encounters"), Mark Madoff... and you and I.
This politically motivated mass murder is yet another unintended consequence of the lies and distortions of the propaganda machine that the American Body Politic, Left and RINO, has become.
And now what? What if another incident like this were to occur? Then what? Will our democracy be forced behind bullet proof glass? Or will we have to have a Secret Service detail for each Member of Congress? Will it be the local police next? The Rule of Law is under attack like no other time in its short history... and it is under that attack as a result of the unintended consequences of the actions taken by those that purport to support it... though they will be unable to see it that way, opting instead for another run at our Second Amendment Rights.
This is a sad day for all Americans, indeed.
24 comments:
I fear that many, left and right will try to coop this for their own political agenda rather than accept it for what it is, a personal tragedy for many and an American tragedy for us all.
This could be the first significant, armed, terrorist flare up of the coming Left/Right Civil War.
Nothing surprises me any more.
While I would never support such action at this time I have to take issue with your rule of law comment.
It is the very fact that our state is already slipping from that stated rule that things like this are likely to become more and more common.
The entire health care debate is a perfect example of what has become of our rule of law. Anyone in opposition is slandered and marginalized. Laws being passed along party lines without even reading it. Laws containing highly questionable sections that push the very boundaries of constitutional the their extreme limit.
I have a feeling that if what we have seen in recent history continues what we saw today will become more common not less.
Your comments fully reflect my thoughts.
How depressing. How do our elected representatives, with this fresh in their minds, get this impossible job done now?
Look at what we have wrought.
America will become more like Iraq, with a similar third-world economy, wide-spread factional violence, heavy handed military or mercenary presence, and propoganda about how the gov't is working hard and making progress in "turning things around". When bombings get to be as common place as shootings, then the Star Spangled Banner should be dropped as the national anthem and replaced with an up-dated version of Gott bless Amiraqa.
Since the job is impossible, they won't do it.
This incident will lead to increased demand for Xe and companies that make bullet-proof vests or cars.
Anon:
Please use a nickname or register... I don't want to debate with straw men.
I don't disagree with you, if you have read my stuff for a while, that much would be clear.
The Rule of Law must survive, and that would include Congress respecting the Constitution. Under no circumstance, NONE, can this be accomplished via political violence... or violence of any label.
This is what comes of a society that fails on so many levels to respect the sanctity and value of human life, and it is incumbent upon us to bring the ship around. If that is to be done, it WILL NOT be done at the point of a gun.
Kathy, it seems that is exactly what some are trying to do. I've read a few things on line since the shooting. Lefties are saying that this guy is a right wing nut while I've seen some righties saying that this guy is actually left of the congresswoman, hates Christians, etc. along with a bunch of other, somewhat incoherent stuff.
Anon at 4:49 could be very right I suspect. We're on a slippery slope from here on out. While this particular, violence/shooting event may have come too soon to really further along the Unraveling, I suspect that sooner or later one of these acts is just going to start something that could bring the whole country down into social and governmental chaos in but a matter of weeks.
I'm not so sure there is enough of a critical mass of thoughtful, resolute people left in the States to stop what we're headed for, especially as their thought processes are distracted because they're out of work, cold, or hungry, or otherwise bored and destitute.
"The phrase 'the Rule of Law' has become meaningless thanks to ideological abuse and general over-use" - Judith N. Shklar
I've just come across her essay, "Putting Cruelty First"
http://dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/article_pdfs/d4Shklar.pdf
It looks like an interesting read.
The first thing that came to my mind was the Sumner assault.
Sad day indeed.
I have sometimes lectured basic law, and my starting point is that the law simply enshrines the behaviour of reasonable people behaving reasonably. Therefore if you do so, you need never become a victim of someone else's ire, and if everyone else did so you need never recourse to legal action.
In this real world that doesn't always happen, of course. But it is often when people no longer see other people behaving reasonably that the public consensus about trusting the law is diminished, perhaps to the point of irrelevancy. As bankers, gov't officials, politicians, military leaders, even evangelical preachers cheat, lie, steal and con (and usually get away with it) more and more people feel the only solution is to 'take the law into their own hands'.
In fact the gun lobby interpretation of that word 'militia' in the Constitution demonstates a vision of Americans who do just that - protect their personal view of the world with violence, a view often reinforced by your heroes; from Wild Bill to Batman! Who are your children's heroes? What moral lessons are you teaching them with their video-games? Which one is teaching them about the Rule of Law and how to be reasonable in society?
When the U.S. has about 11,000 deaths a year from guns (for about 300m people) and Britain has about 70 (for 65m people) you have to wonder where the Rule of Law fits in for the U.S.
Donal,
I realize that you are not from the US, and I guess you are a lawyer or even a law professor from your comments, but the use of the word "militia" in the US Constitution Second Amendment as being something akin to ordinary people that take the law into their own hands is not merely a creation of "the gun lobby." Rather, the word's use is supported by many other documents written by several crafters of the Constitution from back when.
Indeed, the idea of people in the US "taking the law into their own hands" flows equally likely from the Declaration of Independence" where it says:
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Now I am certainly not going to argue that what this guy did was the proper way to "institute new government", but it is through this wording in the DoI, and not merely the Const., 2nd Amendment, that people in the US feel inspired and even obligated, to take things into their own hands.
Another thing:
Though I don't own a gun myself, I'll say this.. most of the gun deaths in the US are by gang type thugs on other gang type thugs. Personally, I don't care if 11,000 or 11,000,000 such people are killed as long as I have the right to a gun to protect myself as I grow older and more feeble, from a would be physical attacker. (Many, if not most attacks by the young, on the old, rely first and foremost, if not totally, on physical strength and quickness rather than a gun, and guns equalize that somewhat.)
Again, I don't care how many use something incorrectly as long as it doesn't affect my right to own the same item for lawful use.
Would we take away *my* car if other people proved incapable of driving *theirs* correctly? No.
SB; your are wrong for the following reasons;
Your greatest security comes from being part of a reasonable society.
You cannot have a reasonable society where '11,000 or 11,000,000' people are killing each other.
You cannot bring up your children to believe that safety comes from a gun, and that heroes are people who kill more of the other people, without the consequences that you are experiencing every day in most American cities.
A civilised society is not based on fear and guns. It is based on caring for one-anothers wellbeing.
Tell me Stephen, do you feel safe or do you feel scared?
Donal,
First response is to blame Guns!!!!HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH Over half of Gun deaths are suicide. The majority of the rest are from inner city neighborhoods. Only 4% of gun deaths are rifles and 5% are shotguns. The rest are handguns. The militia/pro-gun lobby are usually rifle/shotgun owners, but many have handguns. The real problem in the inner city crack epidemic which makes gangs fight over territory. The groups with the highest violence rates are central and south America gangs. How does that equate with the gun culture? All of my friends hunt and I would bet they are more responsible with guns than people with no experience. There was a clinical study where they hid guns in kids toys. The children that grew up in households that went and got the adults to tell them every single time while the ones that had no familiarity starting playing with them every single time. The truth is that there are dangers in a free society. The ability to make yourself great also creates the chance of complete failures. The philosophical question is can we take away free will? In Britain the suicides are from other things(slitting wrists, prescription overdoes, etc) The exact argument the libertarians make against the patriot act is the same I use against restriction of Gun ownership. The government cannot protect you against every danger and that is inherent if you live in the real world. Jeffers is right on about the respect for life idea I suppose, but our society glorifies the gang culture so until the inner city culture is changed nothing will really change with the murder rate. You can also see this in the homicides by age groups (14-24) make up a disproportionate amount of the overall trend. On the British crime trends idea, Britain already had a lower crime rate before gun laws passed. The British are also notorious for misrepresenting data to make crime rates look better. If you live their as you say you should know this, if not Google British underreporting crime data. But the real kicker is that Europe would have a murder rate average of over 400,000 a yr if you threw in the murders by the governments against unarmed populace. The overall crime in Britain is horrendous being the worst of the 18 industrial nations surveyed(linked at the bottom BBC). The US has the most permissive gun laws in the world and our violent crime rate has fell 41% the last 10 yrs. Britain’s has increased. The states with the highest gun ownership has the lowest crime rates, while the states with the highest crime rates have the lowest gun ownership rate. Murder rates follow the pattern. The one thing I can say is that your inability to make a intellectually honest argument is humorous.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2656875.stm
"But the real kicker is that Europe would have a murder rate average of over 400,000 a yr if you threw in the murders by the governments against unarmed populace." I Forgot to put in over the last 75 yrs.
And no you fool I don't feel as safe without my guns!!!!!!! That is why I have so many :) You keep telling us how leftist are different in Europe, BS.
Dex; I can't be bothered to tear apart your post piece by piece because it is bullshit, but I have to ask; where on earth did you come up with, '"But the real kicker is that Europe would have a murder rate average of over 400,000 a yr if you threw in the murders by the governments against unarmed populace." ???
Dex; I think you and I live on different planets, and I have to say I prefer this one!
Hitler, Mussolini and every other communist government in Europe. I put over last 75 yrs in next post because I forgot it in text. I don’t think you could tear it apart, but I am very afraid of you now. Yes don't refute just claim you know what is better. What facts is wrong bud? Go over it, you claim you could tear it apart. Let’s do this. IT is very hard to compare crimes rates because every county compiles theirs different, but you are a typical Euro elitist.
I feel safe....far safer than I would feel living in a society where the government has all the guns. Europe comes to mind.
This: But the real kicker is that Europe would have a murder rate average of over 400,000 a yr if you threw in the murders by the governments against unarmed populace. The overall crime in Britain is horrendous being the worst of the 18 industrial nations surveyed(linked at the bottom BBC). The US has the most permissive gun laws in the world and our violent crime rate has fell 41% the last 10 yrs. Britain’s has increased. The states with the highest gun ownership has the lowest crime rates, while the states with the highest crime rates have the lowest gun ownership rate. Murder rates follow the pattern.
I am eventually moving to Maine, a state with fairly high gun ownership and some of the lowest crime around: http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/crime-rate-state.html
That shows a overall violent crime rate for Maine of 118 per 100,000 people.
This link shows the UK with 2034 violent crimes per 100K persons:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
Even allowing for differing interpretations of what constitutes a "violent" crime, that second link says the US has an overall violent crime rate of 466 per 100K residents FAR less than that of the UK and even less than most all of the other EU countries it discusses.
You see, when you broaden the scope beyond just the very narrow one of crimes perpetrated by small arms in the hands of private people, the crime figures tell a MUCH different story.
Indeed, Europe is, historically one of the most violent places there is and has been. It's just perpetrated in another way besides "private" citizens with hand weapons.
I feel very safe (as opposed to scared) indeed.
Stephen,
My point was the murder/violent rates in the USA vary wildly from state to state. Louisiana, with fairly average gun laws, has a murder rate ten times that of the UK, while Vermont, which has almost no gun control laws at all, has a murder rate on a par with the UK. And Vermont doesn’t have the death penalty. Blaming guns is too simple. I would like to see the murder rate of the US with the major cities taken out. I suspect it would be very low. The problem is the culture in the inner city minority neighborhoods. It is also strange to compare a nation of 60 million on an Island to the trade center of mankind with multiple ports and access through 2 other nations on the north and south. The left plays this game of blame all the time. We have a much more diverse culture than Britain with different groups trying to assert themselves, but it is just as simple as blaming guns to them.
* Crime in the United States, 2004, Table 2.5, and National Population Projections, Detailed Files, 2001-2010 (US Census)
In 2004 the murders committed by whites was 5053. The white population was 189,000,000. There is no breakdown for guns. That means the murder rate is 2.6 per 100,000 for white America. IF you realize this includes all Hispanic, Arabs and anyone who classifies as other. There are 15,000 homicides a yr. In the us 2/3 are committed by guns. IF this average holds true in the white category it would be 3335 murders by guns making the gun homicide rate 1.77 per 100,000 for whites. The problem once again is the gang culture of the inner-city and not guns. Donal the total guns deaths are 25,000. 10 to 11000 murders with guns which you were right I was looking at total gun deaths and conflated that with Homicides. They try to hide the crime rates by race in UCR report because of the race thing. So hard to come by any meaningful figures unless you do some digging. Anyways my point stands that the U.S. homicide rate among whites is almost the same as British homicide rates. The gun issue is not really that important when dealing with the issues except in the inner-city.
Rule Of Law:
I must respectfully disagree with your statement that it can not come about through political violence. That is exactly how it has come about in most cases to date. The American revolution was just that as was the French revolution.
Tyranny can only be dissolved one way unfortunately.
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