The word "never" is certainly a cause for concern. However, I believe even in the event of Glenn Beck's nightmare scenario that we need to exhaust all avenues first. Now those avenues could expire quickly depending on circumstance but they should be exhausted before violence is used.

If the shootings had happened before the November elections, would the GOP still have captured the House. It seems like the public affection for Obama has skyrocketed in an instant. Don't be surprised to now see people who we thought would run shy away, not wanting to be slaughtered in 2012.

So the American Left's desperate attempt to build a better Rube Goldberg machine continues. They won't give it up because they have been absolutely stripped bare of any respectability at this point, and so we have these futile attempts to regain credibility.

Has any good come from this obscene exercise? Yes. There no longer is any pretense of a difference between the old-time mass media and the Democratic Party. It is so obviously transparent that CBS doesn't care.

What remains of the intellectual Left should try an intervention, but even that likely would be met with similar insanity.

I agree with Rook. For most people, it's dinner time, they're trying to get the poll and the phone call over with, and they're not thinking through all the implications of each question.

I think if the poll asked, "is it okay to raise arms against the government if it cancels the next election," you'll get a much different response. Which, related to that, is the point of the Second Amendment -- it's a doomsday clause.

I believe Rook is right, most people are assuming we will continue to have a government like we have today. While we may disagree with our elected officials in almost everything, we have not totally lost faith with our ability to effect change peacefully, through the ballot box.

If the nation suffers an "extreme stressor", such as an economic collapse, a large scale terrorist attack, or as Rook points out a self-declared dictatorship that cancels elections, then we're in a "whole 'nother ballpark". Insurrection, IS insurrection but it will only be "justified" if the insurrectionists win and write the "history describing how the good guys won".

None of this is relevant to Loughner...

"Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government..."

The right to take up arms against the government when it becomes an instrument of tyranny is a bedrock, founding principle of the Republic, and it's a sorry state of affairs when 76% of the public is wholly ignorant of that fact.

This is simple evidence that the public--even self-described Republicans--can be cowed into submission by a relentless assault of even transparent slander and libel. When it comes down to it, most people just don't want any trouble. And the thought of having to defend oneself as a warmongering, Rightwing militia madman (i.e Teabagger) against the Leftwing media PC onslaught is often just not worth it.

And so you get poll results like this.

Either that or the baastards have finally won.

Oh come now. If CBS contacted you to ask you poll questions, would you even give them the time of day? Nor would I; nor would most who'd make that minority the majority. Look at how CBS trumpeted how 81% or the like of Americans were just fine with how the TSA is naked-scanning and groping passengers (a poll later counteracted by Zogby). Dan Foster's outrage would be justified, but first, skepticism regarding the CBS poll is surely in order.

It would be interesting to see the results if the language was "take up arms against" instead of "take violent action against." One implies, as Jefferson did, the defense against some perceived wrong, including tyranny; the other, as CBS so artfully understood, implies a field day for crazies.