Five dead, twelve injured in Tucson attack.
 

Unbelievable stuff. I've been following this for the last several hours. At first they were avoiding mentioning anything about republican/democrat influences, but now they're starting to speculate that some of the inflammatory rhetoric coming from the rabid right may have led to this.

Just now, they mentioned that the shooter had a facebook page where he called himself a political terrorist.

My bet is he'll turn out to be an antisocial marginalized nutcase. Unfortunately, those are the types who glom onto the inflamatory stuff.

I'm not certain enough to feel comfortable putting money on it, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was a Beck nutcase.

he sounds insane to me, but I don't know if they'll link it back to conservitard rhetoric.

Bet they will as soon as he starts talking. He may be uncooperative with the cops right now, but he's guaranteed too monomaniacal to resist a chance to monologue. When he does, I'll bet real money that he'll sound just like certain republican blowhards. He'll probably quote them.

Check out his youtube page...

YouTube - Classitup10's Channel

Edit: It's 6 dead now, and this guy is just a nutcase.

Not learning:

Somehow I knew I'd find this exact type of discussion on here this morning.

It reminds me of a Chris Rock piece where he's talking about how everything (with kids) is 'because of' something else, when in reality simply someone being 'crazy' is more than sufficient.

But I should have known that this has to be a tea-party/beatnik's fault.

Yeah, everyone except the rabid right seems to think this is at least partly caused the inflammatory rhetoric that's been coming out of the US for the last couple of years. The Tea Party (see previous posts) thinks it's because of the looney left (no reason given -- just the bald accusation). But of course, you're much too smart to think that there might be a cause and effect situation here, and you prove it by deadly and rapier-sharp application of sarcasm. Thanks for enlightening us.

Irony aside, and not knowing anything about you, your post sounds exactly like what a right-wing apologist would post. Not saying that's what you are, just what you sound like. Feel free to expand on your original post by giving logical and/or evidentiary (or even anecdotal) evidence why this should not be considered a causal situation. this is after all a discussion group. What did you expect to find? Porn?

The best commentary I have heard on this tragedy so far came from the sheriff investigating.

He simply said that it is the current political mindset to inspire anger and vitriol against the other party. It is no longer a discussion by opponents, but a battle by enemies which has caused so many people to feel such contempt for their political opponents.

While this individual was clearly troubled, could there be much doubt that he was spurred on by a political process driven by such animosity and outright hatred?

Reminds me of the old saying, "When you point your finger at someone, you point 3 fingers at yourself."

I liken it to the same cause and effect situation that violent video games and movies and rap music cause people to become serial killers, rapists, and murderers. Can it happen? Sure -- but would that person be a psychopath whether they watched Wile-E. Coyote receive a hammer to the head or watched Cookie Monster sing about cookies? I'd say probably. I watched violent movies as a kid. I've read a Glen Beck book. I was spanked as a child. I've never offed a member of congress and never will.

And I have no problem with discussions -- it's the reason I come here. The people are (for the most part) intelligent and the posts are thought-provoking. I guess this subject just sort of 'sickened' me a bit from both sides of the media -- instead of well-wishes for the ones lost or injured, everyone jumps to arms to blame the other side. I just think this guy would have snapped whether Nailin' Palin (in honor of your porn reference ;)) put targets on a map, listened to N.W.A or had a mother who loved him. I just tend to think 'crazy' is to blame here, not God, a tea-partier, President Obama, or even that talking baby on the E*Trade commercials. I just feel that too much blame is put on outside sources -- a serial killer was spanked as a child. A rapist played Grand Theft Auto when he was younger. So what? Odds are good they were nuckin' futs to begin with.

And as for me being a right-win apologist, I'm hurt by that statement ;) I despise both parties and feel that the two party system is a disease to our country.