Why attack Sikhs?

We have more violent crime - you have more murders - because of guns, irrespective of legislation. We can't stop violence but we can do something about the prevalence of guns so lessening the severity of 'going postal'.

We've got a long history of violence towards 'aliens' in the UK but have become a fairly tolerant multicultural society, racism/ignorance will still persist no matter what, but by improving integration and understanding between cultures these instances will happen less and less.

The US is hampered in this mainly by it's dependency on having to have an opponent worthy of spending defence dollars on, your economy is heavily reliant on fear. If you were happily content how many arms manufacturers and the like would 'go under' tomorrow?

 

That may or may not be true. The way in which that is measured (and what constitutes a "violent crime") in the two countries is different, making comparisons unclear.

 

This is not the kind of response to the Family Research Council's intolerance and bigotry that I would like to see.

Fox is quick to "report" that it is being treated as a case of domestic terrorism. The Washington Post makes no such suggestion.

 

i'm not sure what the point of that is, cyn. the organizational right likes party discipline. they enforce it like trotskyites. krugman simply points to the consequences of that. but the organizational right doesn't give a fuck. it's all about power. whatever damage they inflict on the way to the shallow pool of us democracy is all good, so long as they get power. personally, i've long expected moderates to run away from it. seems to me that if you identify as a moderate conservative you've got little choice but to not support the republican party.

 

what i'm saying is that it's a problem for moderates that the republicans has veered so far to the right since tapping into amnesia in order to avoid paying the price(s) for the bush period became self-preservation job one. whence the astro-turfed tea party for example. it's not that different for folk who identify on the left with respect to the dlc-dominated democratic party, which is objectively centrist (the red-baiting hallucinations of the right media apparatus notwithstanding, of course). i would think that moderate republicans would have no particular problem with the dlc-dominated democratic party at this point--they much more closely reflect their interests than do the republicans.

then again, perhaps i am not the one to take advice from. i think the right should burn for iraq. and for the entire economic philosophy that brought us 2008. but you know how it goes. personal responsibility only applies to other people, power above all, blah blah blah.

 

In terms of this being characterized as a hate crime or domestic terrorism, the shooter should be treated no different than anyone else who had a political motive for firing a weapon at another human being. .

It doesnt change the fact that the vast majority of politically motivated shootings and other act of violence in recent years have been perpetrated by extremists or "nuts" on the right.
--- merged: Aug 15, 2012 at 5:08 PM ---

I would say the Republican party abandoned you and any moderate conservative and, instead has aligned itself with the more extremist elements of its Christian and ant-government base to the point that compromise for the greater good of the country is no longer an option if it results in pushback from that base. Many former Republican elected officials have made the same observation.

 

I'm having a hard time understanding where you are going with this...other than avoiding the facts.

The facts remain that the greatest increase in hate crimes (murder, assault, vandalism...) in the last few years have been towards Muslims and gays.

And at the same time the harsh rhetoric by groups on the right has become more intolerant of Muslims and gays and Republicans (as a party) at the federal and state level have embraced these right wing groups more than ever at the expense of more tolerant, moderate conservatives who no longer have a voice in party policy and politics.