Very few Americans are fans of both The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kamp, as the Tucson killer, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, apparently was. Fewer still post on the Internet fears about “brain washing,” “mind control,” and “conscience dreaming”; have a long record of public disruption and aberrant behavior; were expelled from community college; or were summarily rejected for military service.
No matter. Almost immediately following Loughner’s cowardly murdering of six and wounding of 14 including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, pundits and some public figures rushed to locate his rampage, together with his paranoid rantings about government control, within the larger landscape of right-wing politics — especially the rhetoric of the Tea Party and Sarah Palin.
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Apparently, we are supposed to believe that Loughner’s unhinged rants about the “government” indict those who express reasonable reservations about the size of government as veritable accessories to mass murder. The three worst offenders were Paul Daly of the New York Daily News, who claimed just that in an essay with the raging headline “The blood of Congresswoman Giffords was on Sarah Palin’s hands”; the ubiquitous Paul Krugman, who connected Loughner to the supposedly Republican-created “climate of hate”; and Andrew Sullivan, who thought he saw yet another avenue through which to further his own blind antipathy toward Sarah Palin and “the Palin forces.” In their warped syllogism, the Tea Party unquestionably creates hatred; a congresswomen was shot out of hatred; ergo, the Tea Party and/or the Republican party all but pulled the trigger.
That the 22-year-old shooter more likely fit the profile of an unhinged killer like Ted Kaczynski or John Hinckley did not seem to register. In the wake of the Kennedy assassination, commentators pontificated about a right-wing “climate of hate” in Dallas, Texas, that supposedly explained why a crazed avowed Communist — pro-Soviet, Castroite 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald — shot President Kennedy. Suddenly, this week, we are back in a 1963 mood of blaming politics for deranged shootings.
In the times of national uncertainty and fear that immediately follow hideous mass shootings, this cheap habit of channeling insanity into politics always surfaces but never convinces — as we learned from the deplorable tactic of blaming the Oklahoma City bombing on conservative talk radio. There is usually no clear-cut evidence that a shooter’s ideology has trumped his own imbalances; and we are never quite sure what outside stimulus is the deciding factor that pushes the unhinged over the edge from sounding like a nut on MySpace or YouTube into pulling the trigger.
Loughner was no John Wilkes Booth or James Earl Ray, whose bouts of insanity and past troubles seemed overshadowed by a virulent hatred of the men they shot, which in turn was driven largely by racism or sectarian hatred. But even in such seemingly clear-cut examples of political assassination as Booth’s small cabal, we do not quite see a Day of the Jackal–like cold professionalism, funded by nefarious and well-organized political organizations. Plenty of southerners wanted Lincoln dead by spring 1864; scores of racists shared the sentiments of Ray toward Martin Luther King. But while both killers carefully planned their shootings, it is far harder to uncover elaborate conspiracies that used Booth and Ray as mere triggermen than to discover that both were troubled, sick, and often violent characters whose demonic furies turned their own political extremism into carefully calculated murders.
Further, there is no evidence that political killers share a common ideology. For every apparently right-wing Timothy McVeigh there is a left-wing Ted Kaczynski; both exhibited a sort of mental derangement in their braggadocio about extreme politics. The Sixties culture of drugs, permissiveness, national liberation, radical politics, and environmentalism no more made the Palestinian extremist Sirhan Sihran assassinate Bobby Kennedy, or Charles Manson follower Squeaky Fromme try to kill President Ford, or pop socialist and cult preacher the Rev. Jim Jones order the execution of Rep. Leo Ryan, or Arthur Bremmer shoot the “segregationist dinosaur” George Wallace, than right-wing politics drove on the equally deranged Jared Lee Loughner.
The author is correct about the suspect, there is no doubt he is deranged. I am not so sure about dismissing the politics as it is too early to know and the author is taking out a defensive, partisan position. One thing that is certain is that the tone eminating from the right is that Obama is an enemy and anyone who supports him is fair game.
This has to stop.
The National Review constantly harps about socialism and Obama when they know that is utterly false. This tone of militancy and revolution, constitutional originality and the like is a springboard for the anri-government terrorists on the right.
Obama won the election. He is black with an unusual name. Get over it already.
This is meta-critique, criticizing the critics and sounding defensive. The only thing worse than the sharp rhetoric on both sides is the meta detachment of the elites, including Mr. Hanson here.
Excellent article as usual Dr. Hanson-but the bottom line with the left is not REASON- its emotion and power. I have watched the left do this for many years and reason plays no part. When rhetoric serves their purpose and the circumstances as well they use it for one thing and one thing only POWER baby. Just like homelessness which disappears when democrats are in power and re-appears when republicans are back so too the gun debate and censorship. Reagan and Bush can be called the vilest of names and its a non issue- but when a dem is called the same its time to control speech and thought. This circumstance could have occurred anywhere at anytime under any circumsatnce- mentally ill people are all around us and unstable minds dont need others to act- maybe The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf should be banned- how would the libs react to that? Its only when public opinion goes against them that they seek total control and nows the time baby.
So many times we saw the effigies of the “Burning Bush” from the Left for any number of imagined reasons. Never once did I hear a Krugman suggest those of his ilk were radical, mentally unhinged, insane or speakers/demonstrators of hate.
This runs in the same vein as our friends on the left desiring bi-partisanship and civility…only when the reins of power have been wrenched from their clutching fingers.
They would show no grace even when faced with bitter defeat.
On the morn following that defeat and for some weeks thereafter denial and derision of the voting populace were the order of the day.
Take note of the waning weeks of the lame duck session.
It would appear to me that even when handed truth on a platter, ignoring and deriding the will of the people was still en vogue.
But no, that was not extremism or insanity, now was it?
It was Obama who characterized those who don't agree with him as "enemies" needing to be "punished."~Univision, Oct. 25, 2010
Yes, he was referring to voting at the time, but as a responsible public figure, his tone was inflammatory.
Also, who are these "right-wing terrorists" for whom the original Constitution is a "springboard?" I hope you're not implicating the Founders.
As for Obama's socialism being "utterly false," when the government nationalizes private industry (GM) and promises to work toward the goal of "single payer" healthcare, that's socialism. Putin even warned about Obama's "excessive interference" in the market soon after Obama took office.
"The National Review constantly harps about socialism and Obama when they know that is utterly false. This tone of militancy and revolution, constitutional originality and the like is a springboard for the anri-government terrorists on the right."
Really? And what is the solution? To restrict speech of conservatives because it does not comport with the world view of... who? You? Congress? Some government agency?
Do you suggest we hold adherents to constitutional originalism accountable for the shootings that occurred on Saturday? Perhaps those who disagree with President Obama and may even call him a socialist? Why? Because we as a society are so fragile that we cannot bear to hear any opposing views?
What *does* debate and discussion, perhaps even vigorous dissent look like in the brave new world many are calling for?
Articles were published today detailing the events of an assassination attempt on a Democratic representative.
Instead of reacting to the tragedy with a normal response, the right wing immediately turned this terrible event into a political debate.
Give it a rest. Of course if a political figure is shot you would look first for political motivations in the killer. Of course that's a valid topic to bring up.
Can anyone say, "defensive"?
Somewhere along the line, the Republican party became less about values, and more about personal attack. It is completely ridiculous that just hours after people are murdered in a senseless act of violence the Republicans are complaining that they weren't represented fairly. This isn't about you. People died today. Have some respect.
The problem with ANY comparison of Left/Right political speech and attitudes is that the Left does not have a 24-7 propaganda machine hammering talking points into the faithful (and many times, deranged) heads. FOX News and the associated radio Spew is unique in our political world and comes solely from the right. When a demonstrably false statement is believed as true by a large majority of listeners(death panels, anyone?) you are being disingenuous AT BEST to state that the rantings of on-air nutjobs like Rush, Hannity, Beck and Palin too, have no effect.
Don't forget the left wing shooting of the school board meeting in Panama City Florida recently. I don't recall a big outcry about policital rhetoric influencing that.
Good column. Paul Krugman's response, and the response from the NYTimes editorial pages in general, has been deplorable but unsurprising. Their claims echo Dan Rather's deliberately mendacious description of schoolchildren in Dallas "standing up and cheering" when they heard that Kennedy had been shot.
One thing, Lincoln was assassinated in Spring of 1865.
Very well argued.
I just want to add that at this point the left is simply desperate to silence the tea party people, to bring us back to the state of silent majority we were in before Obama.
We want to shout at our politian, not to shoot at them, but they want to equivocate to get back the advantage.
What some fail to realize is that, while we all have been guilty of unintentional irresponsible speech, the attempt to lay blame for this tragedy at the feet of Palin or other conservatives is intentionally irresponsible.
The ongoing criticism of the president's agenda has little to do with his name or race. The millions who voted for him were not racist then and they're not racist now. Just disillusioned.
Any politician uses the rhetoric of warfare. He "declares" that he is a candidate for office - as in "declares war."
That happens at the outset of his "campaign" for office. During such a campaign, he may feel the need to "pivot" one or more of his positions - doing precisely the same thing the German Army did on Verdun at the outset of WWI pursuant to the Schlieffen Plan.
Use of the language of warfare must be banned. Also, we should ban football as it is obviouslsy divided into "offense" and "defense."
Edward V, you say that Obama isn't a socialist? Wow. I can't begin to try to argue you off that ledge. But I do want to refute you with some logic.
Obama is the MOST socialist president we've ever had. Far more so than even FDR. Obama's move to socialized medicine was the biggest power grab for the government at the expense of private interests that we've had since the Great Depression.
I notice, too, that you didn't respond to the author's assertion that Obama has done at least as much as Palin or Beck to create a climate of violence (if any exists at all, that is). No American president since Nixon has ever referred to the opposition party publicly as "enemies" the way that Obama has.
Davis is correct. If there is anything dysfunctional about our public discourse, the left has as at least as much culpability as the right.
The author is right that Loughner is deranged and that we should not call this as an act of politics from the other side (as opposed to whichever side you like). Political action is consummated at the voting booth, anything past that is no longer just politics.
Commenter Edward V does not understand that and goes on to represent the worst of political fanaticism by bringing in Socialism and Racism into a discussion trying to keep politics out of an act of insanity.
