The AZ shootings, Jared Loughner and Politics

As most readers know by now, Jared Loughner gunned down 12 people, killing 6 and critically-injuring AZ Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. One of the dead victims is a 9-year old girl and Federal Judge John Roll.

The irony here is that Giffords, having been plagued by threats and vandalism against her office and threats to her personally had previously called for civility with these foreboding words:

"We're on Sarah Palin's 'targeted' list, but the thing is that the wa...y that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. And when people do that, they've got to realize that there's consequences to that action."

Here's the graphic in question:



Is it me, or is this disturbingly reminscent of the abortion doctor list kept by some anti-abortion Christian fundamentalist groups?

When a radical Christian group keeps a list of abortion doctors they're targeting, and then add strikethroughs over their names when they're killed, are we to believe there's no connection?

The late George Tiller, one of the few doctors performing legal late-term abortion was gunned down at church by a Christian radical. Likewise, Gabrielle Giffords was gunned down in the wake of Palin's infamous gunsight-graphic which targeted various political leaders egregiously support 'health care reform' for all Americans.

For more on why health-care reform (and Universal healthcare) is a good thing for America, read my blog entry here.

One of the major players in the abortion doctor hitlist name/location campaign is ChristianGallery.com, who maintained their list until February 5th, 1999, and they recently celebrated the assassination of Dr. George Tiller who they describe as 'extreme late term aborted'. Tiller was gunned down by Scott Roeder, a mentally-unstable Christian who reportedly subscribed to 'Prayer and Action News', a magazine that advocated "justifiable homicide" as a way of protesting abortion.

The owners of Christian Gallery were hit with a $107 million dollar judgement against them, and their ISP (Mindspring) booted them off their servers. Think about this dear readers...Palin's gunsight graphic is not *that* different from the Christian Gallery 'abortion doctor list', which makes things all too easy for unstable vigilantes, which I would suspect comprise members of a radical movement which takes such wild offense to such notions as 'health care reform'.

Yes, to Tea Baggers such as Palin (who ironically would receive a form of universal healthcare as a government employee), health care reform and gunsights go together. This shows me that Tea Party is completely lost in their radicalism. If Palin runs in 2012 we can almost guarantee a second term for President Barack Obama. If we thought the Republicans were on the wrong side of many issues, the Tea Baggers are just plain loony.

What's amazing here is it's not like health-care reform includes a mandatory goose-step around a picture of a new communist leader....it's simply the extension of existing universal health care to everyone, which already exists for some: older seniors, the very poor, prisoners, veterans, active military and yes, government employees such as Palin.

Even if the U.S. were to consider Universal healthcare, it's a huge benefit to Americans who need it the most and are least able to buy private health insurance, much less pay for the costs to get emergency treatment without any insurance. Universal healthcare would cover the 45 million uninsured people and have them paying in to the system, and everyone could avoid the red-tape of for-profit insurance-racket which puts more effort into denying and rescinding coverage than covering those who need it most.

In essence, if Tea Baggers understood healthcare and how we *already have universal coverage for some groups*, and how *every first world nation on the planet has universal healthcare* aside from the U.S., they might not be so quick to enjoy to depose (or kill) politicians trying their damnedest to make this happen.

There has been a huge response from the blogosphere with regard to this event. Some want to use this as a platform for gun control, and they make some good arguments. Others want everyone to tone down the rhetoric. My take on it is that this is not the time to abridge our rights but to enforce controls on gun control that already exist. We also need to really close down loopholes that allow the mentally unstable to get guns.

It is possible to have a debate, even a spirited debate, and have both sides not kill each other. That's really what we need.

Why some people feel the need to resort to violence is hard to pinpoint. Perhaps it's the coddling of our children too much with false confidence and a lack of accountability, or a lack of critical thinking instruction with insufficient challenges for silly ideas. Unfortunately, people conflate 'respecting beliefs' with is 'respecting people' too easily. Beliefs do not themselves command respect even if the people who hold them exercise free-speech.

Palin is a good example of how ignorant you can be and still attain political power and somehow not be universally decried as a blithering idiot. I don't know what's worse, Palin's success or the fact that she has followers, but I digress.

I understand being incensed by an argument one finds dishonest or even asinine, but there's no better way to deal with that than to use words and thoughts to undermine bad arguments while being open to improving our own. When one can bring an ideological opponent to reason, that person becomes a voice for others, and so on. This is how change occurs, and why words matter.

Sure, many mentally unstable people fall through the cracks, and some will acquire guns....but maybe if we had universal healthcare (which needs to start with reform), people like Jared Loughner might have gotten the help they needed, and a few more people might be alive today.

Let's hope Giffords pulls through, otherwise the Republican governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, is likely to install a Republican in her place. That would almost be a reward for this assassination to opponents of the progressive-left, and that's truly scary.

Here's my response to Palin's graphic.