Tucson is a tragedy, not an opportunity

By now the unspeakable shooting of 19 innocent people in Tucson is well known, and facts are coming out.  The promising 9 year old girl, the respected Federal Judge and the others who died did not deserve random attack.  The moderate Representative did not deserve to be targeted by an animal.  The others that were hurt or killed and their families did not deserve to be traumatized.

Unfortunately, many immediately jumped on the political opportunism bandwagon.  Most of them were on the left.  The first attempts were to link the shooting to conservatives and their causes.  They hope to drive public opinion to the left, or at least distract conservatives by making them defend themselves. They didn’t waste time; a “Mission accomplished Sarah Palin” tweet came out moments after the shooting, before the number of victims or name of the suspect were announced.

NY Times columnist Paul Krugman lost no time in (wrongfully) tying the Tea Party movement into the attacks.  He cited a 'vulnerable seat target' map that uses surveyors’ crosshairs to indicate targets, so that he could blame Palin. But he and others ignore a nearly identical DLC/Progressive Policy “behind enemy lines map” in 2004 and others since, or Democratic strategist Bob Beckel claiming credit for invention of the military-style campaign lexicon for Clinton. Gov Palin is only dangerous to Socialists' political ambitions, not the physical safety of any rational human.

The Constitutional office of County Sheriff requires avoiding politics, maintaining calm and protecting major investigations.  Unfortunately, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik does none of these, but instead chooses to repeatedly (and incorrectly) blame “hard right” radio, cable and internet commentators for inflaming hatred and calls Arizona "the mecca for prejudice and bigotry".  He also called current gun laws “the height of insanity”, ignoring the fact that criminals (this includes robbers and murderers) rarely pay attention to laws (this includes gun laws).  The shooter’s defense attorneys will doubtless be quoting the Sheriff.

Secretary of State Clinton, a self-proclaimed Progressive Socialist, (opportunistically) called for (unconstitutional) global gun control, (unrealistically) equating foreign terrorists with American "extremists".  Without any relevance to the shooter at all, no evidence of what she is talking about, she tries to tie political activity (zealous or not), mental illness and/or lawful and peaceful possession of guns in with global Jihad bent upon international genocide.

At least two Progressive organizations (21st Century Democrats and the Brady anti-gun campaign) have already seized on the tragedy in cynical fund-raisers, claiming (imaginary) links to Republicans or conservative causes. More vile, if possible, is the infamous Westboro “church” (check the site address for this religious institution).  The anti-Christian, pro-hate group has announced their intent to protest at the funeral of the child.

Of course, many that are routinely misinformed by “news” like this are ready to spin further out.  Viewer comments in papers and web sites are full of things like "I knew the Tea Party would do this! They are all haters" and "Palin [or any other conservative] has blood on her hands". These people are victims who might see reason, if presented with it.

After evidence began piling up against any right wing connections for shooter Jared Loughner, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen laughably blamed the gun itself.  He had a professor once that asserted that America was not discovered by Vespucci, Columbus, Eric the Red or even the “native Americans” walking across the land bridge.  Nope, it was the Nina (actually “Santa Clara”), Pinta and Santa Maria.  Yes, the actual wooden structures found our hemisphere, not the explorers.  By this logic, the newspaper you read this morning will be to blame for the fire if it is ever burned.  This is a ‘plan B’ for Leftist propagandists: if they cannot blame the right, blame firearms themselves (by extension, all gun ownership and the Constitution) and excuse anti-American perpetrators.

As more facts surface, some of them specifically indicate a Leftist viewpoint for the shooter, Loughner.  Most point to outright derangement, but everything he said and did indicate a pathological aversion against all that conservatives, Tea Party members and Americans in general believe in:

~ unnecessary violence; Right to life is key.  Vast Tea Party rallies have not even resulted in litter, let alone right-on-left violence that propagandists constantly warn against (some assaults against the conservatives). 

~ denying God; Loughner specifically disrespected God in his videos and appears to have anti-Semitic ties (named target Giffords is Jewish).
~ National Socialist "Mein Kampf" and the "Communist Manifesto"

listed as 'favorite books'.

~ Disrespectfully burning the American flag.

~ Disrupting classes and shouting "18!" (neo-Nazi code for Hitler).

~ Finally, Giffords, while a Democrat, opposes excessive spending and supports effective border

protection and the Second Amendment, as did Judge Roll.  Not exactly far left. 

This avoidance of truth is cumulative.  Too many still believe earlier lies about Timothy McVeigh being a "Christian" or "right wing" terrorist.  In fact, the mass murderer was a self-proclaimed Agnostic that quoted Socialist poetry on his way to the death chamber.  They have tried unsuccessfully to paint every recent attack as "right wing".  Some residual stigma still remains in the subconscious even after the lies are disproven.

A look back at notorious attacks shows that those responsible are not conservative at all.  Most recent were the Millard H.S. shooting (Omaha, Ne, 1-11) and School Board shooting (Panama, Fl, 12-10), but also the infamous Columbine shooting (Columbine, Co, 4-99) and Virginia Tech massacre Blacksburg, Va, 4-07). Remember also: the beltway snipers (D.C. area, 10-02),the Ft Hood shooting (Killeen, Tx, 11-09), the U of Alabama teacher shootings (Huntsville, Al,2-2010), the plane flown into an I.R.S. office building (Austin, Tx, 2-2010), the “Save the Planet” shooting (Silver Spring, Md,8-110), even the rally finger biter (Thousand Oaks, Ca, 3-2010) and the S.E.I.U. beating of a (black) rally attendee (St. Louis, Mo, 8-09).  They were all falsely reported to have Tea Party, Republican or other conservative causes before each was clearly proven to be anti-Constitutional: jihadist, far left, anarchist and/or mentally ill.  Look them up (from reliable sources).

Let’s also recall who has actually called for violence recently.  Obama adviser Van Jones wants Progressives to create a “battleground” in the streets.  Socialist icon Frances Piven (surviving partner of Socialist demigod duo Cloward and Piven; buddies with the Obamas, Clintons, Carters…) wants to know “…where are the angry crowds… and unruly mobs” that “should be fighting” Constitutional capitalism.  She says outright that “the out-of-work have to stop blaming themselves for their hard times and turn their anger on the bosses, the bureaucrats or the politicians”, and “an effective movement… will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece… or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England…”  Obama himself said that if conservatives “bring a knife, we bring a gun”. Leftist civility. 

Some Progressive “representatives” have now weighed in, basically deciding that removal of our Bill of Rights would stop future murders.  At least one Pennsylvania Congressman plans to ban all speech or symbols that someone ‘may’ deem threatening.  Just in case.  I find the concept of attacking the Constitution threatening.  Others want smaller magazines (can’t kill with the first 10 rounds, you know), more gun sale and possession restrictions on law abiding citizens, etc. It appears that the first rounds Loughner fired were the most devastating. The fact is that one or two armed and practiced (the Constitution calls it “well regulated”) citizens present in the crowd in Tucson would have been the only way to have avoided so much injury and death.  They could also have stopped or shortened any of the other events listed above.

Columnist Jonathan Alter doesn’t try to sneak in something or nudge things a bit further left.  He writes overtly in Newsweek that it should be a goal of the Obama administration to use, to exploit the crisis for Socialist ends. His view is that Progressives should gain from the tragedy.  It’s a crisis; it shouldn’t be wasted, as Obama’s Chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel said.  For these people, it’s an opportunity.

Loughner began tracking Giffords and building human skull shrines as early as 2007, 2 years before the first Tea Party.  He was not ‘pushed over the edge’ by any conservative input; he didn’t listen to them in the first place.  College classmates (before he was expelled for threatening behavior) called him “crazed” and “a pot smoking leftist” even then.  Never a “gun owner”, he didn’t buy his gun until November 30th and his ammunition until the morning of the shooting. 

Loughner appears irrational, not coherently political. Obviously he’s not a registered member of any legitimate political group. But it's the left end of the scale that he fell off, not the right.

POST SCRIPT (1-13-11): Yesterday,  There was a memorial service for the victims of the shooting.  Some impressions on the service:
~They gave it an event name.  "Together we thrive".  It was the Together we Thrive memorial.  Not just a memorial to the victims.  It was not the 'Congress on your Corner' memorial or the '1-8' memorial, or some reference to the victims or event. It is more reminiscent  of "Yes we can!" than the people who were victimized.  They handed out 14,000 T-shirts emblazoned with "Together We Thrive: Tucson & America".  Where did they come from?
~The lengthy "invocation" was nicely done - by a 'native American' shaman.  Giffords is Jewish. Statistically, the rest would be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or other.  I may be wrong, but none appeared native American.  The only Bible references were worked in by other speakers.
~They forgot to tell the college students and party faithful that it was a memorial.  They hooted and whooped, whistled and shouted.  Most of this was when Obama walked in, was introduced or spoke, but some of it was when injuries were mentioned.
~Obama was brilliant.  He was polished, dignified, articulate, practiced, and studiously not-overtly-political-sounding.  The speech itself was masterfully crafted to avoid offending anyone or giving conservatives specific arguing points.  The pauses were strategic (and enthusiastically jumped on by the rally - er, memorial - attendees).  First news of Gabrielle Giffords' opening her eyes was withheld so that Obama could pronounce it himself.
The campaign of 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 goes on.