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Originally Posted by ottopilot
So now, as we've seen so many times before (i.e. census worker), there is no evidence to support a political motive behind the attack. The sherrif essentially made up his statement to the press (without a shred of evidence) to support his claim that the attack was most likely prompted by the volitile media voices of the right. As a law enforcement professional expected to work within the evidence and the law, his statements are highly irresponsible if not intentional in the misrepresentation of the facts. To what purpose? We can only guess as to his motivations. It's fairly easy to guess why the media hacks would want spin this into something it's not. But to eagerly and willfully assign unsubstanciated blame to persons or groups for unrelated violent acts of a sick individual is highly disturbing in itself.
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I think that the focus on the sheriff here is telling. Who cares what the sheriff said? He's not prosecuting the case. Furthermore, while he did mention Limbaugh by name as an example of a source of vitriolic rhetoric, he didn't explicitly blame Limbaugh for the shooting. He's said multiple times that the shooter was nuts. Scrape away the partisan framing and nothing the sheriff has said is outside the realm of common sense.
The sheriff has become the focus here because he gives folks like Rush an opportunity to paint himself and his fellows as victims. Seriously. Rush Limbaugh has convinced you that he's being oppressed by this mean old sheriff.
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Immediately after the Ft. Hood masacre, our leaders and media rightfully echoed the need for restraint in jumping to conclusions about what motivated the attack. Where was the restraint in this case? Why do any of you feel justified in continuing to perpetuate this hoax?
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I feel like I've read this line elsewhere. Did you know that passing someone else's ideas off as your own is called plagiarism?
Feel free to provide a basis for the idea that Fox News was circumspect about assigning blame prematurely after Ft. Hood.
---------- Post added at 12:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by ottopilot
What rhetoric is superior here? The fact that the majority here agrees with you is only reflective of this very small space. We can all go round and round indefinitly about which politics fosters the most crazies and back it up with articles and videos. I suspect we know in our hearts that this event was nothing more than actions of a highly disturbed mentally ill individual. So to what purpose has this highly emotional pot been stirred for us? We are too quick to jump to battle-mode. Who stands to gain from an eventual overreaction (we may already have)? It's like we're being baited toward escalation. It's simply a feeling that we're all being played. I don't know... I'm just looking for a way for all of us to step back and tone it down.
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I think that it's interesting that we can all assume that this dude is crazy because his actions fit certain patterns of behavior which are associated with insanity but somehow it's totally not okay for us to assume that he's a right wing nutjob even though his actions fit certain patterns of behavior which are associated with right wing nutjobbery.
For the record, I don't care about his motivations. To me this issue here is the complete unwillingness for most folks on the right to be openly critical about the people who speak on their behalf.