Dr. Slammy, I agree that the left is not as extreme at the moment, but my point was more of the myopic view that both sides can take. There are people who will disagree with anything said by the other side.

I have never voted for anyone other than a Republican un my life (I’m 38) but have been betrayed by the incompetence and shenanigans of the present administration. What burns me is the fact that these commentators couldn’t admit when Bush was wrong or when the Dem’s were right. This is what I was talking about, we need people who aren’t afraid to read both the NY Times and the Washington Times, understanding that both come from opposite views and that both are occasionally right and occasionally full of hot air.

None of the “legitimate” talking heads are issuing explicit directives to go kill a liberal, it’s true. But their hatred is hardly subtle; it can’t be. Subtlety doesn’t sell advertising or rally huge audiences. Complexity is tiring. Empathy is uncomfortable. Scapegoats, easy answers, someone to blame who’s not ourselves: that’s what we want, apparently, because that’s what we listen to and watch… by the millions. Hard to believe.

I know this man is unbalanced. I believe in personal responsibility and accountability as an individual. But it runs all the way up the ladder, from crazed shooters to hate-mongering attention whores to profit-obsessed media execs. And right back around to us.

I’ve been so angry about this, I’ve had a hard time formulating a response.

I’m glad someone has labeled Adkisson a “Conservative Terrorist.” If he were a Muslim, he certainly would be labeled as such and the story would still be the lead.

Was Adkisson so completely brainwashed that he believed he could walk into a liberal church with a shotgun and 76 shells and everyone would just line up and wait for him to reload? Oh, that’s right. We’re weak! We’re weak because we’re opposed to the war and violence in general. We’re weak because we’re gay or lesbian or supportive of those who are. We’re liberals, so, naturally, we’re weak and we’ll just roll over and play dead in the face of strong, conservative, he-man masculinity until he gets around to making our deaths reality.

Sure, Adkisson had copies of O’Reilly, Savage, and Hannity. I’d be interested in Rush’s recent comments as well—I’m sure they’re in keeping with his long-history of hatred.

But there’s one thing we can be sure of: O’Reilly, Savage, and Hannity will vehemently deny being any kind of an influence. So will Rush. They never seriously suggested that Adkisson, or any other red-blooded American male, really pull the trigger on the enemies of America. No, they never meant THAT to happen. But they’ll relish the spotlight they’ll recieve for their denials and protestations.

Chickens, the lot of them. At least Osama takes credit for the terrorism he inspires.

What was the context of that comment from Rush? Yes, it matters to me. I’m guessing that there was a reason for the comment. That was why I said earlier that these guys sometime make bad, failed attempts at satire or sarcasm. If this was a “Nappy headed ho” Imus moment, then fine. You win that point. I just don’t know. But I doubt it.

By the way, Google “Bo” Snerdly. That’s the guy that screens which callers get through to Rush. It is entirely possible that this guy is the Rush version of Uncle Ruckus, but I seriously doubt it.

Uhhh, Mike – I know you realize that you wouldn’t HAVE an audience like that if you weren’t chumming the waters, right?

It’s like a batshit crazy Manson believing he should start a race war because a lyric in a Beatles song. Or Chapman killing Lennon. It’s a consequence of having a big ass soap box.

To some degree, sure. If people will kill in the name of God, they’ll kill in pretty much ANYBODY’S name if they’re sufficiently cranked. But there’s an important distinction to understand. When you twist a message of love and peace, well, it’s all on you and your particular psychosis. That’s illness and nothing else. But when you kill in the name of a message of hatred, marginalization and divisiveness, then there an alignment of inner dysfunction and external message.

Say everybody is rated from 0-100 on crazyness. 100 is the person who’d kill babies because Mother Teresa’s ghost was ordering him to, and 0 is the person who’d die before intentionally stepping on an ant. Maybe at the far end – 97-100 – external factors cease to matter because you’re just that batshit crazy. But maybe if you’re 90-96, maybe then there’s an interplay. You’re crazy on your own, but in the absence of a toxicity in the media environment you don’t snap.

Causation is a complex soup – you’re a scientist so I won’t lecture you on what you already know. In some cases it can take five or six or more factors in just the right proportion before things go kablooie. Take any one of those factors out – no kaboom.

I watch these guys at least as much as I watch/listen to CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and NPR. I even put up with Rush on occasion (although I can’t stand more than about 15 minutes of his monologue at the start of his show). When taken in the context of the entire conversation, I simply don’t see what you’re calling “race baiting” or anything hateful as that. I see them arguing issues that oftentimes has race as a factor, but I have NEVER heard them say anything resembling superiority of one race over another.

So you wouldn’t be bothered by Rush telling a black caller to take the bone out of his nose?

The only time they’ve come close is when talking about religion, gays, or abortion. But even then, as much as I vehemently disagree with what they are saying, I don’t feel that they are advocating any sort of violence against these populations.

You’re still not listening. I didn’t say they “advocated violence.” I said their words demean and dehumanize people by category – in a way that both relies on and fosters further ignorance. I don’t ever have to advocate violence against a particular group – just let me control what they hear and the violence will take care of itself.

But, seriously. IF you had the same readership as someone like O’Reily or Beck, yes, I believe 100% that some of what you say here could somehow be linked to someone doing something as stupid along the lines of what this guy did. It’s like a batshit crazy Manson believing he should start a race war because a lyric in a Beatles song. Or Chapman killing Lennon. It’s a consequence of having a big ass soap box.

I watch these guys at least as much as I watch/listen to CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and NPR. I even put up with Rush on occasion (although I can’t stand more than about 15 minutes of his monologue at the start of his show). When taken in the context of the entire conversation, I simply don’t see what you’re calling “race baiting” or anything hateful as that. I see them arguing issues that oftentimes has race as a factor, but I have NEVER heard them say anything resembling superiority of one race over another.

The only time they’ve come close is when talking about religion, gays, or abortion. But even then, as much as I vehemently disagree with what they are saying, I don’t feel that they are advocating any sort of violence against these populations.

Mike, I barely know what to say to you right now.

Here at S&R we present ideas that others disagree with and we disagree with others’ ideas strongly. We do so in a generally informed manner that is, as best I can tell, in keeping with what a democracy ought to be.

It sounds like you believe we’re no different than Bill O’Reilly. We have some rules about commenting, to be sure – you come in here race-baiting and you’re gone – but we don’t scream at you for disagreeing with us before you have a chance to express your ideas. We don’t cut off your mic the instant you fail to toe our line. We don’t call you prefabricated names because you’re a member of a different political party. And we don’t write books explain that half the population is mentally ill.

There ARE conservatives out there who fit the bill you’re describing. I detest George Will, for instance, but you’ll notice I didn’t include his name. Our own whythawk comes from a radically different political and economic direction than I do, but we LOVE him. We have commenters here that we barely agree with on anything – Jeff, for example – and we argue with them, sometimes vehemently. But point me to the behavior that comes anywhere close to what we get, on a daily basis, from these people.

I guess it’s conceivable that there’s somebody out there so twisted that they could shoot up a public meeting and when their home was searched it would be clear they’d been reading S&R. Anything is possible. But if you think the chances of that happening are anywhere near the chances of what happened Sunday repeating itself, well, you’re my friend and I love you, but you’ve lost your goddamned mind.

As for the connection between this killer and his choice of reading material, I still think it’s no different from finding a nutcase who had a house full of RPGs. What if they find that this guy printed out your blog from several months ago about how it’s “consistent” (however wrong) for the pro-life faction to be going after doctors who perform abortions and wallpapered his house with it? Ridiculous, right? But in both cases, it is/would be the actions of a madman. And in both cases, his choice in reading material would be blamed for his actions.

BTW, do we know that this guy’s definition of a “librul” worth killing was really ALL libruls, or those who were pro-LBGT and/or pro-choice? I’m guessing that there is a reason he specifically went after a church, but I don’t really know.

But let’s flip this around a bit. Let me ask YOU a question. We know the killer hated libruls. We know he set out to kill as many as he could. And we know that he was reading some books that fostered – at the least – a grave dehumanization of this group of people.

Explain why you don’t think there’s any relationship between these facts at all, if you would.

Yeah, I have listen to some of them. Well, mostly O’Reilly and Beck. The others don’t really talk so much as yell their arguments so I tune them out. I’ll agree that much of what they say is disagreeable. But I don’t see them actively advocating killing anyone. That’s ridiculous. At worst, I find that the parts you find most objectionable are (much like the New Yorker cover) very bad attempts at satire.

Let’s remember something – I’M the one who said, quite explicitly, that causes in cases like this are complex and that the guy was off the rails. Please, you want to argue, argue with the argument I MADE. Don’t pretend I’m saying something I’m not, especially if you’re then going to use MY argument as though you’re the one who introduced it in the first place.

In both cases, it requires someone who’s already nuts, and who believes what they want to believe, filling in the blanks as they see fit.

Now, if this guy was basing his actions on something like say, Mein Kampf, then, maybe I’d agree with you.

Good analogy.

I disagree with both of you. Bob, there was a time in the country when the left was the more violent of the two extremes: the 1960s and early 70s (though the Ku Klux Klan, Chicago police, etc. certainly gave the SLA, Weathermen, Black Panthers, et. al. a run for their money). That time has long past. It’s the right (Timothy McVeigh, white supremacist groups, Adkisson) that perpetrate most, if not all, of the domestic violence and terrorism these days. And, like Slammy says, there is simply not a left equivalent for Coulter, Savage, Limbaugh, O’Brien, Hannity, and their ilk. They PREY on hate.

Sure, the hate was there before they started, but they amplify and focus it the way the Nazis found German anti-Semitism and amplified and focused it.

He was not a product of bitter partizan politics any more than the rantings of the left’s “Kill Bush” crowd has produced assassins who would attempt to kill the president. He searched for and found justifications for his actions in the popular press. He acted on his paranoid fantasies and killed decent people of our community.

He is certain to be found mentally disturbed, and may never spend any more time unincarcerated. One would hope.

He did nothing that anyone in the political discourse universe that is our present system can condone. Not on the right and not on the left. He is not a “cause celeb” for gun control or mental health funding or drug company support or ANYTHING! He is a sick individual whose behavior should be condemned on that basis alone.

I would hope that your prayers and support would follow for our citizens who have lost loved ones due to this event. I would hope that your condemnation would follow on his head. I would hope for a world that is a better place than this person found it to be. I will not however hold my breath while I hope, nor will I cease to work for such a place.

My $.02 worth

That’s a point that matters.

“They’ve been encouraged to believe that these others are bad humans who are responsible for everything wrong in the world, even when the alleged responsibility isn’t even barely plausible. They’ve been taught that complex problems result from simple causes and that the solutions are simpler yet.”

Unfortunately there are mirror images of this on the far left as well and these individuals can be just as dangerous. We need to admit our problems ARE complicated and we must face them anyway. I recently read the book “The Thirteen American Arguments” that hits on this idea. The link below offers a good review of the book.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/quarrelsome_nation_the_thirtee.html

Another well written post on a great blog. Thanks you guys!