I’m not sure if the various death wishes for Sarah Palin made on Twitter and Facebook, as a result of false accusations that Palin’s electoral target map caused the Tucson shooting, constitute death threats. Saying you hope someone is killed seems to walk right up to the line, if not across it.
Screen shots of the death wish tweets are at Patterico, and a video montage is in my earlier post. Here is one of the Facebook pages created just after the shooting:
What is most remarkable about these death wishes is that they were done in the open and often with the identity of the person not hidden. The identities of the tweeters and the people who “liked” the Facebook pages were readily identifiable in many cases.
Why do these people, many of whom are professionals, feel no fear in expressing such death wishes in the open?
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Because they have no shame, no moral compass, and no souls, that's why. Also, they know that they can do whatever they want with impunity, the left is in control of this country and will quickly give them a free pass as surely as they did the New Black Panthers.
Oh, you wingnutz.
Don't you know that this is just a metaphor?
I'm sure he left would be HEARTBROKEN and AGHAST if anything happened to Sarah Palin at the hands of one of their…more 'excitable' types.
Why do these people, many of whom are professionals, feel no fear in expressing such death wishes in the open?"
I think it's because violent, impulsive, hate-filled people are drawn to social groups where such behavior is acceptable. Since the left is far more accommodating of hate (provided it is directed at approved targets) than the right, haters are drawn to the left.
Let's not also forget that political violence is not merely tolerated on the left, but actually celebrated. No one on the right is going to show up at a Tea Party rally in an Eric Rudolph T-shirt. There are no right-wing collegians with posters of Tim McVeigh on their walls. But mass murderers like Che Guevara and Mao Tse-Tung and cop-killers like Mumia Abu Jamal are celebrated as heroes on the left; and their images adorn T-shirts, posters, and flags at most any progressive gathering.
And how many of them either attended the Jon Stewart rally for civility in DC or "virtually attended" via Facebook.
Gosh, another feature of Orwell's 1984 has come to life, the daily 15 minutes of hate. I wonder if the Left understands that his books were warnings, not instruction manuals?
Hey Good LT, love the sarcasm but in truth they would actually BLAME Palin for her own assassination saying it was her fault because she was so polarizing and her violent rhetoric lead to it.
Sort of like saying that she deserved the assault because of what she was wearing.
There are a fair number of righties commenting also. At least they're not scrubbing comments as on some lefty sites.
Someone should start a website and post the names of these people
Can't you tell these were done with great empathy, nuance, and studied consideration of the facts in hopes of fostering a more loving and tolerant political environment? Unlike, say, when Rush and Sarah use mind voodoo to give telepathic kill-orders to crazy people.
At least they haven't called her a socialist.
Why do they not fear what should be the obvious consequences for their open death threats/wishes? Simple:
1. Deep down they know those of us on the right are not truly the death mongers they claim we are, and thus won't shoot them on sight.
2. They trust in the acceptance of, acquiescence toward, and general lack of serious given to, their actions in a political climate ruled by their comrade leftists. Could you imagine Obama calling them out by name on this? Holder? Pelosi, Reid or any other Democrat leader? Never gonna happen.
You questions whether the people wishing her dead via bullet, or cancer or dying "gnashing her teeth" are making death threats in a legal sense. Perhaps, perhaps not. But keep in mind that Loughner wrote on a letter from Representative Giffords: "Die Bitch." Before this weekend, we didn't know if it was a threat or a wish. We do now.
Like Obama said, they need to discover empathy.
"Before this weekend, we didn't know if it was a threat or a wish. We do now."
Actually, it was not a threat, for he didn't communicate it to her before the event.
It was a PLAN.
Because they are godless Leftists and for them there is no downside to wishing Conservatives dead. The danger of Leftists is that they only emote; they don't think. There is no moral compass or set of values there to rein in their worst impulses. So, they do whatever feels right in their sight. Now we know how it was in Judges.
When we told friends on the SF Peninsula a few years back that we were moving to Texas, a couple of dozen of them took the opportunity to vent with shockingly rancid comments about Bush and rednecks and truck drag races with black men in chains.
Get to one of the reddest counties in Texas and brace for more of the same when I tell people we're from San Francisco… "Oh, the granola city–fruits, nuts and flakes." But never once did we get a less than gracious response.
i will note that we have identified at least two tweeters who can plausibly say that they were misunderstood.
so please note that when you pass it all around.
–Aaron
As I pondered from a personal perspective what it would be like to post such a vicious thought publicly, the key to this came to me quite clearly. The obvious price of entry is, as Zilla/MJ said, they have no moral grounding, and no shame. However, there's one key criteria that's been unstated – that is, they have no JOBS. Quite likely the bulk of the freaks who have the nerve to post such evil are not under the general obligation to present a respectable face to the community, because they won't get fired for being an evil freak – either because they're unemployed, or they work among a small cadre of like-minded freaks.
The Secret Service is going to be very busy after President Palin's inauguration. Every death threater must be exhaustively investigated.
Obama said last night "For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind."
Not true, Mr. President. You could ask Jared Loughner. He's right there.
"Like" isn't a great word for a FB page. I wish they'd include a button that says "loathe and abominate but want to keep an eye on." I have "liked" a number of public figures about whom I have committed violent eliminationist rhetoric in my heart because I want to see what they're up to.
Aaron Worthington,
Please provide the who and why.
As my tee shirt warns, "Don't drink and blog"…
Why the Left Lost It
"(The left) expected to take losses in November. What they got instead was Armageddon. Suddenly an authentic reform movement, linked to the Republican Party, whose goal simply is to stop the public spending curve, had come to life. This poses a mortal threat to the financial oxygen in the economic ecosystem that the public wing of the Democratic Party has inhabited all these years.
The stakes for the American left in 2012 couldn't possibly be higher. If then, and again in 2014, progressives can't pull toward their candidates some percentage of the independent voters who in November abandoned the Democratic Party, they could be looking in from the outside for as many years as some of them have left to write about politics. A wilderness is a terrible place to be.
Against that grim result, every sentence Messrs. Krugman, Packer, Alter, the Times and the rest have written about Tucson is logical and understandable. What happened in November has to be stopped, by whatever means become available. Available this week was a chance to make some independents wonder if the tea parties, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Jared Loughner are all part of the same dark force.
Who believes this? They do.
The divide between this strain of the American left and its conservative opponents is about more than politics and policy. It goes back a long way, it is deep, and it will never be bridged. It is cultural, and it explains more than anything the "intensity" that exists now between these two competing camps. (The independent laments: "Can't we all just get along?" Answer: No.)"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791904576076373704758778.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
I would also point out that openly violent rhetoric on the right never makes it out of the fringe. Whereas on the left, Democrat Congressman Paul Kanjorski was openly calling for the assassination of the Republican Governor of Florida.
Because, seen from the vantage of a keyboard and computer screen, one's d*ck appears bigger than it actually is. Metaphorically speaking.
It's why people's on-line dating profiles are so
much more appealing than the actual people, themselves…furious
Where was all this leftist angst about vitriolic rhetoric just a few years ago?
Ms. Palin evokes such spurious hatred because she dares to question the decrees and dictates of the self-proclaimed ruling/political elite. (A social class that includes a vocal group of non-elected pundits who are obviously convinced that we members of the uneducated bourgeois sit in anticipation of their considered opinions.)
Those persons capable of independent thought are a danger to the progressive and self-serving policies of the ruling elite. Those persons incapable of independent thought must resort to terrorist tactics.
Because everyone they know and everyone they associate with and everything they watch or read agrees with them.
With regard to the left/right dichotomy, it is instructive to remember that there is evil at both ends of the poles.
With regard to the left/right dichotomy, it is instructive to remember that there is evil at both ends of the poles.
But only the left celebrates murderous evil, e.g. Che Guevara, Mao Tse-Tung, Mumia Abu Jamal…
The answer is quite simple. This is what Hope&Change;! really looks like.
Just my .03: Any leftist worth his/her salt will say, "WE don't engage in such hateful rhetoric – but if we do, we don't really mean it. The Right always means it!" This is all based, of course, on the belief that leftists, by definition, are peace-loving progressives who are entitled to blow off steam while right-wingers are evil, evil, evil people who try to make their violent fantasies come true. (Or something like that.)
Alcohol.
Much of the violence ascribed to the "right" is really from the Left. The Tea Party and genuine GOP are classical liberals in the spirit of Jefferson and Mills. The Nazis, white supremacists, fascists, skinheads, etc. are derivations of Socialism and thus part of the Left.
Which is why people always get balled up into knots when they note that the line between the extreme Left and the so-called extreme Right are indistinguishable in terms of tactics, strategy, or outcomes.
If there were an honest single dimensional philosophical spectrum it would be from the Left (Socialism, Fascism, Statism, Oligarchy, etc.) to extreme Libertarians. No circle there–and neither extreme philosophy works.
To answer the question why these freaks feel no fear in expressing death threats: h.r. departments (like schools, the media and the courts) have been hijacked by libs. Those ugly, angry libs have no fear reprisal bc as we know, their liberal superiors have no standards of decency, either. Their political ideology is their religion.
re: MrBuddwing,
Bill Maher made the all violence is from the right argument the other night on Leno.
He had a good shtick going. Guns are an addiction. All irrational violence comes from the right. Lefties are all rational and non-violent so the rhetoric is ok. And he hatest Gingrich the mostest for some reason, presumably because they disagree.
I don't think the audience bought it.
From 9/2008, Sandra Bernhard issues gang rape warning to Sarah Palin.
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2008/09/19/2008-09-19_sandra_bernhard_issues_gang_rape_warning-2.html
How long before we reluctantly decide that it's time to fight back?
My Mama taught me always to be civil so I won't say that these people act like this because they are turds.
there is a pretty clear difference between wishing or hoping for someone's death and calling for it or even making an actual threat. I'm surprised the writer of the blog still hasnt realized that saying "i hope she dies" isnt an actual threat. It's just a statement of distaste.
@Adam, were you one of the people who sent one of the tweets in question?
Dear Tom Kelly,
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA President Palin….good one. I needed that.
I wonder why it is that we're always told to take suicide wishes/threats seriously but give death wishes/threats the benefit of the doubt. If you call the police to tell them that your neighbor is suicidal, they'll run over there like they're on fire, but if you say they're homicidal, meh.
@gail I dont think anyone who made one of those twitter posts is legitimately homocidal…thats quite a stretch. I think people just want Palin to go away, mostly from the media. Some just chose to use death as a type of hyperbole.
@Mr. Jacobson Yes, I actually am one of the infamous twitter posters. I noticed that someone on an earlier post had commented mentioning my name specifically so I thought I'd get involved a bit. I really dont care about the video of posts. I know that my post wasnt serious and that I am hardly followed unlike Palin. And it is really the people who spread the news of this Palin hate that put her more at risk. The more people who see what was posted, which was probably never meant for thousands of eyes, the more likely it is that some other loony could see it and take action. Also, though petty, I think I am the only post out of all posts that actually says that I am not trying to link Palin and the shooter. I just wished she would think before posting things like a target map since im sure her site gets visited hundreds of thousands of times.
Ms. Palin evokes such spurious hatred…
because she laughed at the Lightworker ("journey of personal discovery", "when all the faux Greek
columns have been removed", etc.) and there is nothing more emasculating that ridicule from a strong, attractive woman.
Pres. Obama has never forgotten that, nor will he ever forgive it. Hence the ongoing, if futile, assault by his media and political (but I repeat myself) proxies on Mrs. Palin. Futher proof as to his personal/political insecurity, violating the cardinal rule of never punching below one's weight.
Oops, can I still say "punching"?
Someone who says "I wish I were dead" probably doesn't mean it either, but if you are a person with a duty to report (like a teacher) you take it as seriously as you would take "I want to kill myself." It isn't a question of whether it's likely to be serious, but whether it could possibly be serious.
Adam:
I dont think anyone who made one of those twitter posts is legitimately homocidal
You'd better hope not, or we'll go Krugman on you.
"It's not the people hating on Palin in pages of the New York Times or Washington Post or MSNBC or FaceBook, it's the people who are pushing back." — Priceless.
"Some just chose to use death as a type of hyperbole"
And that's not particularly funny or particularly helpful. It might not express an immediate desire to do harm, but it's one step closer to the dehumanization of your opponent and once she's not a person anymore, anything goes.
@gail She will always be a person. Let's not be delusional. It is not the common citizen's duty to report random hateful twitter posts as if they are serious threats. Leave that to the massive national security groups that try to keep us all safe. Leave it to Palin's security detail. This is the internet. People say a lot of crazy things. It is likely that none of them need be taken seriously, but frankly any random threat or comment on the internet could "possibly be serious"…so should I be paranoid about everything on the internet? no. There is a difference between internet babble and a depressed suicidal student in a class in which you are the teacher. Come back to reality.
Adam's "Come back to reality" sounds like something said by a reality-based (TM) commenter who says the Left wishing someone dead is merely hyperbolic, while crosshair graphics in service to the Right (but not the Left which uses them as often, if not more) clearly indicate inciting, condemnable speech.
The slippery in-your-face illogic and 180 degree twisted fact of Retarded Reagan, Kill Bush, and Die Palin B**** Republican/ Tea Party loathing lefty haters is beyond rational discussion. Their visceral animosity toward challengers, their lashing-out superiority/ inferiority complexes, and their projected own vices has proudly become the hallmark of modern American Democrats cum Progressives.
Irony to them is an adjective describing the state of creased pants and wrinkle-free humanism freed of history, theology and common sense. But it's a noun and what they indulge in unknowingly and shamelessly.
All I can find is Palin's map and some maps made by Democrats with actual targets on them. Red or multicolored circles. I know it seems petty, but there is a difference between a target that seems more neutral and a crosshair which seems more violent and active in the imagery of shooting. I am still not saying there is a link between the map and the shooting. I am just saying she needs to go away. She is too dumb for politics. She is more at the level of Snookie from Jersey Shore in my eyes. I want her gone out of the media and out of this country. Not dead. Expressing a desire for her death was just extreme exaggeration. And I can be the bigger person than Palin by saying I'm sorry for posting it and getting people so riled up. I do hope no harm comes of it.
p.s. http://firedoglake.com/2011/01/08/giffords-opponent-jesse-kelly-held-june-event-to-shoot-a-fully-automatic-m16-to-get-on-target-and-remove-gabrielle-giffords
that link certainly doesnt help the Republicans' case regarding linking violence with political rallies.
Ahh the double standard.
Palin is guilty and culpable because she put cross marks on a map of a geographical area, not an individual.
But Adam's specific wish for an individual's death is just joshing!
'Won't someone rid me of this troublesome priest?!'
Adam: "She [Palin] [receiving outrageous death threats and wishes] is more at the level of Snookie from Jersey Shore in my eyes. I want her gone out of the media and out of this country."
There you go, projection and irrational antipathy. Not at all self-conscious about it, as if it's not visible or risible.
I once had a wonderful Weimaraner who, knowing she had done something wrong put her head behind the curtains thinking she was invisible. It always was disarmingly cute. For a dog.
As to people who claim they're highly intelligent and progressively moral doing same, not so much.
> that link certainly doesnt help the Republicans' case regarding linking violence with political rallies.
Adam is assuming that firing a gun at a target has anything to do with violence at political rallies. It doesn't.
I wonder what experience Adam has with firing a real gun.
> I know it seems petty, but there is a difference between a target that seems more neutral and a crosshair which seems more violent and active in the imagery of shooting.
Maybe Adam will tell us why his "seems" is relevant. Maybe he sees them as different, but doesn't that tell us more about him than it does about ordinary people?
> I am still not saying there is a link between the map and the shooting.
But he's still saying that the map is wrong, without much evidence, and he's got the small problem that said map isn't distinctive.
> I am just saying she needs to go away. She is too dumb for politics.
Note that Adam doesn't bother to support his conclusion.
At best, we've seen that Adam is too dumb to comment on politics, which makes his conclusion somewhat useless.
I'm not going to argue with the mental midget that has to run back to DU or FDL to get his next rebuttal. I will just say that that video compilation could have been made any day of any week for months now. Don't believe me? TRS blogs a live feed of Sarah Palin's twitter account:
http://www.therightscoop.com/tweeting-sarah-palin
@Andy Freeman Read my other posts on this site over the past day Mr. Freeman. I have given plenty of examples of her stupidity. I have likened her to a female George Bush. I especially liked when she couldnt name a single newspaper or magazine that she regularly reads due to either fear of backlash if it wasnt the newspaper voters wanted to hear or stupidity from lack of reading.
And as for your post previous to that, I think firing guns at targets at a rally to kick out the current seat holder is not directly linked to this…its just a strange combo that could send a bad message.
For future reference, the comments on here that I make are just that….comments…opinions if you will…they are neither right or wrong. Of course you would never admit to being wrong. Im sure youre a political genius who is right in all you think and say. No doubt. But try to remember that I am just commenting. I am not writing essays claiming to be right. So dont expect me to elaborate on what you call my "conclusions". I hardly have to provide evidence for palin's stupidity. I'll leave that for you to find on your own.
Maybe you could give me some of your own original ideas or opinions as I have rather than ingesting mine and projectile vomiting them back out with a quip here and there. Come to think of it….that goes for all of you commenting on things I have said.
I am just saying she needs to go away.
Before she causes more more liberals' heads to explode. Oops, can I say that?
She is too dumb for politics.
Which is why smart guys like Krugman, Alter and
Dionne are OBSESSED with her.
Yup, she's dumb. And you're there in a corner with the rest of the batsh*t-crazy Left watching the paint dry around you while Palin stands across the room holding a bucket and a brush.
a female George Bush
Who won the White House twice? You betcha!
Your faith in book clubs and credentialism, while cliche'd, is rather touching.
I want her gone out of the media
Then, Dear @Adam, stop DRAGGING HER IN TO CURRENT EVENTS where, in the course of defending herself, she shows you and your ilk for the obsessive braying *sses that you are.
For someone so dumb/down-market, Sarah Palin sure occupies alot of real estate in your head.
I think Krakatoa made an interesting point early on in the media frenzy and the Left's response as documented above:
Pretending that you can compartmentalize all the woes in the world into one neat box of causation called "Republican/ Conservative/ Colonialist White Male bigotry" gives you the illusion of the power to easily deal with those problems.
The people making death threats against Sarah Palin would never do the same thing to, say, a particular Islamist who actually intended to incite violence with inflammatory rhetoric. Because that would expose them to an actual risk of violence in response. They only pick on targets they know won't hurt them. It gives them a feeling of power.
Adam, jsut so I'm clear on your position:
There's a difference between, say, a target used in archery or darts and something that looks similar (but not identical) to crosshairs from a rifle sight?
The target whioh actually has sharp and potentially deadly items thrown at it is MUCH less threatening.
Is that about it?
The latest rules for the Right reactionary cretins seem to be:
No use of arrows. No bullet points, no throwing star looking asterisks.
No flower petals resembling nightshade. No crosses that appear eliminationist in one orientation and oppressive Christianist in another. No deletion symbols.
No blood-red graphics, no black racist font or sepia photo tones, no feminine italics stereotyping.
The mode of message is now the message for conservatives, according to a Leftist priesthood which absolves its side of any consequences from its symbology and hyperbolic/metaphorical musings, death wishes and threats.
> I have given plenty of examples of her stupidity. I have likened her to a female George Bush.
Since you haven't established that Bush is stupid or that they actually are similar, that's not actually evidence.
> I especially liked when she couldnt name a single newspaper or magazine that she regularly reads due
Actually she did. You're just revealing that your sources are lame.
> to either fear of backlash if it wasnt the newspaper voters wanted to hear or stupidity from lack of reading.
Yet another unsupported claim.
Hint – the voices in your head aren't evidence.
I realize that you'd like to have a valid argument. However, that preference doesn't imply that you actually have one.