From a reader:
Can you please explain to me what the rational distinction is between Loughner and any given mass-murderer who also happens to be Muslim? It seems to me that all of you are quick to ascribe the latter’s acts to his religion or ethnic group as a whole (or at least to link the acts to inflamed rhetoric with no factual connection to them), but you are shocked, shocked that others would seek to do the same when the murderer is a co-religionist or co-ethnic. I think we can all agree that every single one of these people is unhinged sufficiently to commit such acts, and probably none have what would be considered a fulsome, internally-consistent worldview. So what’s the difference justifying the different reactions to them, besides the obvious one?
Also, please declare a moratorium on comparing the current reaction to Bill Clinton’s speeches after the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh actually did have ties to right-wing militias. The correct analogy would be to the impromptu riots that spread through the Oklahoma City Arab community in the wake of the attack. But perhaps that would not sufficiently support your sense of outrage.
Sure, I’ll give it a whack. The difference is that most of the relevant Muslim mass-murderers in recent years have in fact either taken orders or meaningful encouragement from actual Jihadist organizations and individuals. The Times Square bomber did. The Fort Hood shooter did. The DC sniper didn’t, but he seems more of an exception than the rule.
The “obvious” distinction is that there are a number of Islamist groups who are calling for violent attacks on America (which is why we are legally at war with them). Those that align with their cause are simply murderous traitors and terrorists. The Fort Hood shooter, we quickly learned, was in contact with Anwar al Awlaki. Loughner, we’ve quickly learned, was not in contact with Sarah Palin, had a grievance with Giffords that predates Palin’s prominence and the rise of the tea parties, and that he was simply out of his gourd.
Moreover, all of the idiotic “American Taliban” talk notwithstanding, there is no similar effort on the part of any remotely mainstream conservative constituency to encourage violence. The effort to assign blame to conservatives or tea partiers is unfair slanderous nonsense, driven by a desire to demonize fellow Americans and drive conservative views outside the bounds of legitimate discourse.
Indeed, even if conservative rhetoric — or, sigh, Facebook maps – were misconstrued by a tiny fraction of a fraction of the roughly 40% of Americans who call themselves conservative to the point where they committed a violent act, it would still be outrageous to assign that intent to mainstream Republican or conservative figures or to the ideas they espouse.
When Muslim mass-murderers slaughter people, Islamist groups take credit and cheer. When people like Loughner murder people, all conservatives, just like pretty much all Americans, denounce it.
I could go on, but that seems like a meaningful distinction to me.
I think you've hit all the salient points. I would just add that there are Koranic verses that a large contingent of Muslims interpret as mandating violent jihad against infidels. It's another debate as to what percentage adhere to these interpretations (or whether they are right in their interpretation), but it's a non-negligible portion. On the other hand, only a dishonest partisan hack can draw a connection between drawing targets on congressional district maps and this shooting.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe answer to the question is so simple and obvious that the questioner must be suspected of disingenuity. The answer is pattern. We have had many attacks by Muslims, who give similar reasons for their attacks. They have a consistent view of jihad, and they are moved to violence by it.
In contrast, Jared Loughner's public pronouncements to date revolve around currency, counting years BC and AD, and grammar. To my knowledge, these concerns have not moved anyone other than Loughner to violence (and perhaps not even Loughner himself). Therefore, Loughner seems like an aberration, and we don't concern ourselves with the general effects of his beliefs.
Do a little thought experiment. Let's say that 19 men take down a skyscraper. Another shoots randomly into military barracks. Another tries to blow up his car in Times Square. After investigation, we find that all of these men are very, very interested in currency, year-counting, and grammar.
Would your questioner perhaps start to concern himself with the possiblity that these ideas might move someone to violence?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"... when the murderer is a co-religionist or co-ethnic." What on Earth does that mean?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSomeone who uses the terms "co-religionist" and "co-ethnic", whatever the heck they mean, will not be persuaded by JG's cogent whack.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou could have simply said that his argument didn't merit a response, but I guess one has to deal directly with this nonsense from time to time.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow. Very well stated, Jonah. Home run.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI suppose it means the murderer is of the same religion and ethnicity (in contrast to the Fort Hood shooter who was Arab and Muslim, so of a different religion and ethnicity). Trouble is, we don't know what religion this guy was. So I guess we know that he is caucasian, and we shouldn't be shocked that others are ascribing his actions to all caucasians. Which is not what is happening.
Makes about as much sense as the killer's writings on YouTube.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI understand this nutburger assassin is an atheist, which doesn't make him a co-religionist mostly monotheist conservatives and tea party types I know.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTry harder next time, reader.
There's another distinction. The context around such targeting maps explicitly refers to the desire and intent to defeat the subjects in the next election, not killing someone. OTOH the jihadis explicitly say, "kill the infidels." Is it really that hard to see the distinction?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBack in 1942, the FDR Administration initially blamed frustrated Wilkie voters for ship sinkings along the Eastern seaboard until it was discovered German submarines were at fault.
True story.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJonah,
I hope you do go on and do a full article on this. Heck, maybe even a book. And throw in some analysis of other political movements that have had violent off-shoots: abolitionists, anti-Vietnam war activists, pro-lifers, environmentalists, the Sons of Liberty, and the KKK come to mind. Some of these were wonderful causes where violence may even have been justified, others were deporable. But all had people who were appalled by the violence, others who encouraged it, and others in between who were ambivalent about it. In some of these the encouragers and the ambivalent were limited to the fringe of the movement, in others the violent became mainstream, and still others the mainstream of the movement tolerated the violence without directly supporting it.
I'm not quite sure myself where such an analysis would lead, but I expect it would provide some worthwhile insight into the questions of when it is appropriate to blame political movements for violence, and what we should expect from peaceful activists who want to disassociate themselves from violence committed in the name of their causes.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell said but not useful.
The question is: What do we do? The left seems to bury its head in the sand when confronted by Islamist terrorists. Ok, assume that you can shake the left to its senses. What's America's plan here? Nuke a billion people from Morocco to Indonesia? Stop buying oil?
Shift gears. The right seems to bury its head in the sand when confronted by rhetoric likening a ban on Happy Meals in San Francisco to internment camps. Don't tell me McVeigh didn't buy into that garbage. What's America's plan here? Fortunately, we don't have to haul out the low-yield warheads. We can simply tone down the rhetoric, address our problems for what they are in realistic and not apocolyptic terms, and be a little more confident that the next unspeakable tragedy won't be traced to a guy who, God forbid, shows up on a C-SPAN video shaking some NRO commentator's hand.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@MikeB
I'm pretty sure somebody asked you this in another thread, but who is comparing happy meal bans to internment camps?
And is there yet any evidence that this guy was actually motivated by somebod's political rhetoric? It's not like he didn't leave a slime trail on the internet before his attack.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMike - Who compared a ban on Happy Meals in San Francisco to internment camps? Maybe it was said, I missed that. I can't imagine many, if any, on the right, would say "yep, that's an accurate analogy."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFair question, Buster and Colonel Travis. Very fair.
Coincidentally, I began asking, about a week ago, on another thread on this site, for people on this site to tell me: other than taxes, how do you think your liberty's being infringed? Other than taxes, get it? We all agree that taxes are by definition coercive, but I wanted to know in what other ways the readers on this site felt their liberty was being threatened. Three of the first five responses mentioned taxes. But I was persistent, and throughout the day I got some other answers. They were, to say the least, disappointing. Zoning laws, concealed carry laws, some 18 year old felt his liberty was impaired because he couldn't go into a bar in Chicago and drink beer while carrying a weapon, and then there was the guy whose liberty was impaired because in his state he had to buy wine in a liquor store and had to make a separate stop instead of being able to buy it in the grocery store.
When I think of liberty, I think about the feeling John McCain must have felt when he was released from the Hanoi Hilton. I think of Alexander Solzhenitsyn fleing the Soviet Union.
The thread didn't resolve anything. Apparently there are a number of people who actually feel, subjectively, very repressed by matters I and many like me consider trivial and a small price to pay for living in the greatest country on earth. My point back then was that conservatives tend to dress up what is essentially a huge but ultimately very mercenary battle about taxes with the soaring rhetoric of liberty and in that way denigrate the meaning of liberty.
There is a flip side to that. Liberty, as I think I understand it, is something my father fought for and I could be called upon to die for. Liberty is a very, very big thing, a serious thing. And when each and every issue is dressed up as an existentialist threat to America (“It is our right and our duty to criticize the people who have put the fate of our country in peril,” Mr. Limbaugh said. -- Fate of our country in peril?!?!?), some of us worry that a nutjob will hear the words "the fate of our country is in peril" and act as though the fate of our country were actually in peril.
I don't ask what everyone else is asking, namely, calm down. I ask you to remember what you and I know -- that America is really, truly, exceptional, in ways that soaring rhetoric can't adequately describe. There are no internal existential threats. We can tax ourselves across the board another 20% tomorrow, tighten our belts, and flip the rest of the world the finger. Have more faith in America. This country will survive and thrive -- despite everything you think liberals are doing to destroy it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAmerican Taliban? Idiotic. Liberal Fascist? Nope, definitely not idiotic.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMr. Loughner is mentally ill (or so it appears). Jihadist terrorists are not. Deceived or evil perhaps, but not insane.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMikeB, like AemJeff, seems to have a narrative that he wants to tell over and over.
It was with great joy that I saw Jay Nordlinger's article:
External Link
I'd been trying to recall some of the details from the Bush years of 2000-2008, but his article brings forward some things that even I didn't remember.
When MikeB and AemJeff start condemning the overwhelming vitriol of the Left over the last decade as fervently as they are condemning the comparatively pale rhetoric of the Right today, I'll consider their suggestions about "the Right toning it down" to have some merit.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMike - so no one said it? You just made it up? You're also assuming people feel "repressed" by the answers you read in NRO comment boxes? Was your question then about "repression" or "infringed liberty"? Did you get to talk to any of those people at length about their concerns?
Maybe you need to reconsider how you get from A to B from now on, especially when it comes to electronic conversation.
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