Maybe you all should go back to citing blog quotes after all?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Give it a name, and Bob's your uncle.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Give it a name, and Bob's your uncle.

"maybe you all should go back to citing blog quotes after all?"

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Krugman lays down the law to commenters on his blog:

Notes to Commenters

1. Obscenity will get your comment deleted; I suspect that a fair number of commenters don’t even realize they’re doing it, because that’s the way many of us #$%^! talk these days. But think about it, and don’t waste your time or mine.

2. Stay on the topic of the post.

3. New rule, if you haven’t seen it: Nazi/Hitler references are out unless clearly relevant.

4. Get your insults right. There is, I believe, a fair bit of evidence against the hypothesis that I’m stupid. What you mean to say is that I’m evil.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Krugman lays down the law to commenters on his blog:

Hank - you sure you don't want to rethink your rethought position on the quoting of blogs? I'm thinking a a rethink of your rethink is in order.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Kinsley is pretty good here:

The false rush to cry 'balance'
By: Michael Kinsley
January 11, 2011 04:41 AM EST

When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six other people — including a federal judge who was coming out of Mass — were killed at a shopping center in Tucson, Ariz., I was staying at a resort a few miles away. Among the guests, there were three immediate reactions: outrage, sadness and, if you’re headed to the airport, make sure to turn right at Tangerine instead of staying on Oracle to Ina, because traffic’s going to be a mess down there.

Life goes on incredibly quickly. No one is to blame for that — it’s inevitable. If you didn’t know the congresswoman or the federal judge personally, you still have a plane to catch. But it does seem that we absorb recurring episodes of political violence a bit more quickly than we used to because they’ve become more common. Indeed, they’re so common that everybody knows the script. First, we deplore the event and say we’re praying — and, in most cases, actually do pray — for the victims. Then we deplore the corrosive politics that may have contributed to the tragedy. Next, someone on the left will say that right wingers are more to blame, because they vilify people more than the other side. Then voices on the right will recoil in horror that someone is trying to politicize a national tragedy.

Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, wrote on his website in time for Sunday’s papers: “While we need to take a moment to extend our sympathies to the families of those who died” — there; was that about a moment? Good. Where was I? Oh yes — “we cannot allow the hard left to do what it tried to do in 1995 after the Oklahoma City bombing. Within the entire political spectrum, there are extremists, both on the left and the right. Violence of this nature should be decried by everyone and not used for political gain.”

The “extremists of the right and left” formula generally appeals to newspaper editorialists and the media because it is balanced. And maybe I’m too ideologically blinkered to see the situation clearly. But it seems — in fact, it seems obvious — that the situation is not balanced. Extremists on the right are more responsible for the poisonous ideological atmosphere than extremists on the left, whoever they may be. And extremists on the left have a lot less influence on nonextremists on the left than extremists on the right have on right-wing moderates. Sure, NPR, despite denials, tilts to the left. But not the way Fox News tilts toward the right. Rachel Maddow is no Glenn Beck.

Here is how “balance” works. A front-page piece in The New York Times on Sunday is headlined: “Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics.” The piece says, “Democrats have ... pointed out cases where Republican candidates seemed to raise the prospect of armed revolt if Washington did not change its ways. But many Republicans have noted that they too are subject to regular threats and abuse from the public, and, during the health care fight, some suggested Democrats were trying to cut off responsible political opposition and paint themselves as victims.”

So Democrats have noted that Republicans have advocated armed sedition while Republicans have noted that Democrats sometimes attempt to portray themselves as victims in order to stifle debate. Neither side has a monopoly on virtue. Balance!

As I write, what we are learning about the man arrested in the shooting paints a portrait straight out of central casting: nutty ravings on the Internet, neighbors say he kept to himself and so on. There’s no evidence that he was influenced by anything Sarah Palin may have said — strictly metaphorically — about targeting Democrats. He may even be a Democrat for all we know. Furthermore, Republicans are right that you can’t run a democracy with people biting their tongue for fear of offending someone else. Perhaps harder to accept is the fact that you can’t run a democracy with everyone censoring themselves for fear of flipping some switch in the brain of a nutcase. Democrats should be cautious about flinging accusations at a moment when, because of a tragedy, they have the moral upper hand. It looks like unseemly exploitation.

People who work in the news media get used to the nastiness. The other day, exercising my First Amendment right to procrastinate by searching the Web for my name — a widely practiced secret vice of writers — I came across an anonymous posting on a website that I’d never heard of, asking, “Is Kinsley Dead Yet?” I thought of writing back, “Not yet. Sorry,” but lost my nerve. What if this guy, or someone else, decides to rectify that situation? I was a bit more unnerved a few years ago when Bill O’Reilly, who didn’t like an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, where I then worked, declared: “They’ll never get it,” referring to his gripe, whatever it was, “until they grab Michael Kinsley out of his little house and they cut his head off. And maybe when the blade sinks in, he’ll go, ‘Perhaps O’Reilly was right.’” O’Reilly has millions of followers — just ask him. Who could know whether one might decide to give him a present?

In truth, I’m indulging here in “death-threat chic.” Far from being scared, I was delighted and flattered to be singled out for decapitation by O’Reilly. Maybe I’m going to have to rethink that cavalier attitude.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Kinsley is pretty good here:

google image search "George Bush Target". although there seem to be fewer now that he is out. (and by that I don't mean to excuse the Palin/TeaParty targets, just to suggest that at least parts of both sides that might be behaving badly)

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

google image search "George Bush Target". although there seem to be fewer now that he is out. (and by that I don't mean to excuse the Palin/TeaParty targets, just to suggest that at least parts of both sides that might be behaving badly)

I am looking for the sentence where Kinsley says there is no such thing as a left-wing lunatic, but I'm not seeing it.

[Cletus Miller]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I am looking for the sentence where Kinsley says there is no such thing as a left-wing lunatic, but I'm not seeing it.

"Rachel Maddow is no Glenn Beck". Duh. Everyone knows that lesbian Rhodes Scholars are dangerous, lunatic radicals and Kinsley is implicitly denying it.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Kinsley is pretty good here: "But it does seem that we absorb recurring episodes of political violence a bit more quickly than we used to because they’ve become more common"

Huh?

[Cletus Miller]

Originally Posted by Adder

Huh?

Kinsley is a citizen of the world and he finds it astounding that regular Americans get over the assassinations of Pakistani provincial governors so easily.

Or maybe he's talking about convention-related (and WTO, etc) riots that involve little of the mutual violence of '68, and thus carry less of a weight with them.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

google image search "George Bush Target". although there seem to be fewer now that he is out. (and by that I don't mean to excuse the Palin/TeaParty targets, just to suggest that at least parts of both sides that might be behaving badly)

It's painfully obvious that you did not actually do this Google search yourself.

But, wait, I know: You saw a lot of pictures of W in the crosshairs, back in the day. You just can't find them anymore, but you are really sure you were there.

Now, tell me: Which Dem candidate for VP posted them? Which Dem candidate for VP told people "don't retreat, reload?"

I remember when I was a hotheaded high school liberal, and I tried arguing with my father that Winnie Mandela couldn't be held responsible for the actions of a lunatic mob. Yes, she talked about "taking back the country with our necklaces and our matches," but she wasn't actually handing anyone gasoline and that was just rhetoric and there are always crazy desperate people who do crazy desperate things. And certainly there was as much or more incitement on the other side of the spectrum.

You sound as dumb and naive as I was when I was 16. Congrats.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Huh?

via Digby

-- July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how "liberals" are "destroying America," walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others.

-- October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama.

-- December 2008: A pair of "Patriot" movement radicals -- the father-son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, who wanted "to attack the political infrastructure" -- threaten a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, with a bomb in the hopes of extorting money that would end their financial difficulties, for which they blamed the government. Instead, the bomb goes off and kills two police officers. The men eventually are convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.

-- December 2008: In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear "dirty bomb" in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.

-- January 2009: A white supremacist named Keith Luke embarks on a killing rampage in Brockton, Mass., raping and wounding a black woman and killing her sister, then killing a homeless man before being captured by police as he is en route to a Jewish community center.

-- February 2009: A Marine named Kody Brittingham is arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate President Obama. Brittingham also collected white-supremacist material.

-- April 2009: A white supremacist named Richard Poplawski opens fire on three Pittsburgh police officers who come to his house on a domestic-violence call and kills all three, because he believed President Obama intended to take away the guns of white citizens like himself. Poplawski is currently awaiting trial.

-- April 2009: Another gunman in Okaloosa County, Florida, similarly fearful of Obama's purported gun-grabbing plans, kills two deputies when they come to arrest him in a domestic-violence matter, then is killed himself in a shootout with police.

-- May 2009: A "sovereign citizen" named Scott Roeder walks into a church in Wichita, Kansas, and assassinates abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

-- June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester named James Von Brunn opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, killing a security guard.

-- February 2010: An angry tax protester named Joseph Ray Stack flies an airplane into the building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. (Media are reluctant to label this one "domestic terrorism" too.)

-- March 2010: Seven militiamen from the Hutaree Militia in Michigan and Ohio are arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate local police officers with the intent of sparking a new civil war.

-- March 2010: An anti-government extremist named John Patrick Bedell walks into the Pentagon and opens fire, wounding two officers before he is himself shot dead.

-- May 2010: A "sovereign citizen" from Georgia is arrested in Tennessee and charged with plotting the violent takeover of a local county courthouse.

-- May 2010: A still-unidentified white man walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque and sets it afire, simultaneously setting off a pipe bomb.

-- May 2010: Two "sovereign citizens" named Jerry and Joe Kane gun down two police officers who pull them over for a traffic violation, and then wound two more officers in a shootout in which both of them are eventually killed.

-- July 2010: An agitated right-winger and convict named Byron Williams loads up on weapons and drives to the Bay Area intent on attacking the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, but is intercepted by state patrolmen and engages them in a shootout and armed standoff in which two officers and Williams are wounded.

-- September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. The man, 26-year--old Justin Carl Moose, referred to himself as the "Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden” in a taped undercover meeting with a federal informant.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

You sound as dumb and naive as I was when I was 16. Congrats.

Can you quantify how dumb you are now, because it seems like you've approached absolute zero.
You may be a good test to go pure "no original content."

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

via Digby

Assuming that each of these is an example of "political violence" (not entirely clear to me), how does the frequency compare to prior periods? And can we as a nation really be described as "getting over" these incidents, most of which went more or less completely unnoticed?

I don't think the lack of attention had anything to do with frequency, either.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Can you quantify how dumb you are now, because it seems like you've approached absolute zero.
You may be a good test to go pure "no original content."

I'm dumb enough now that, when a crazy muslim walks into a church carrying bombs, I don't blame the imams who are screaming "kill the infidel!" After all, there are crazy people on both sides, and crazy people do crazy things. The fact that important and prominent people are telling them that they should do crazy things really doesn't figure into it. And people with positions of power and responsibility really don't have any obligation to think about how their words might incite people.



Kidding! I'm not that dumb. But you are.