The New Republic

Why is it so hard to understand that gun metaphors are different in a political context than in a sports, business, etc context. Especially when the rhetoric is targeted towards individuals who combine a love of guns with apocalyptic anti-government views?

- BlueCivic

January 10, 2011 at 2:08pm

Rich Lowry's example proves the point. Football is a violent sport and the number of times players have set out to intentionally injure an opponent is extremely large. Nicknames are also chosen for their violent attributions (i.e., Jack 'The Assassin' Tatum etc.).

- agoldhammer@yahoo.com-old

January 10, 2011 at 2:17pm

I agree a hundred percent with Chait on this. We're going to end up having a stupid debate about civility that will, naturally, embrace "both sides," as though both sides are equally guilty, and blur the distinction between the truly dangerous and offensive on the one hand and forceful argument on the other. When I hear people saying, "We should watch what we say," and "Words have consequences," I get nervous. The *conversation* would at least be appropriate if right-wing rhetoric had anything to do with this incident, but it doesn't look like it did, so all we're doing is blaming Palin, Tea Party and so on for murders that they had nothing to do with. We're fast drawing the wrong lesson from this teachable moment.

- JakeH

January 10, 2011 at 2:27pm

"Right Wing Extremism" is not "rhetoric."

- NR851651

January 10, 2011 at 2:28pm

There is no evidence of a connection between the reckless rhetoric of the right and the shooting in Tucson? The connection is self-evident. The guy may be crazy, but his shooting of a Congresswoman was a premeditated act of political violence. Ms Giffords received threats, had her office vandalized, and was concerned about the potential for violence. Nobody is claiming that the assassin was a paid operative of the Tea Party, part of some Dick Armey band of grassroots killers bent on eliminating the opposition. Maybe, even if we didn't just spend the past year listening to talk of "Second Amendment remedies" and other such threatening language, JC would have a point. But when a Congresswoman gets shot, people who called for "Second Amendment remedies" cannot hide behind the claim that JC makes above regarding evidence. The right has engaged in some very reckless tactics, and they should stop or take the blame when shit happens. Neil

- purcellneil

January 10, 2011 at 2:40pm

Mr. Chait, I think your are missing the forest for the trees this tragedy. Namely, rightwing "eliminationist rhetoric" is not just some abstraction, but has resulted in a real-world sharp spike in hate mail and vandalism against numerous democrats. Gifford in particular had been targeted by the teaparty, had had a gun shot through her office window, and had had a heckler with a concealed weapon removed from a prior meeting. In the context of this increased number of attacks on democrats, a single attack should not be looked at as an isolated incident, which is the mistake I believe you are making, but as part of this pattern. In some ways, it is disappointing that it takes a deaths and significant injuries to get Americans to look at the fact that it has become a dangerous world for democrats in government, where harassment is increasingly common.

- sokol8

January 10, 2011 at 2:45pm

You offer no data for your contention, soko (anecdotes don't count).

- liberal reformer

January 10, 2011 at 2:55pm

"People use metaphors like this in all aspects of daily life -- sports, business, dating, and on and on." The problem is that, in sports, business, and dating, they are almost always just that, metaphors. However, in our nation's political history, they are not. Our country was born in violence (the revolution), nurtured and transformed in violence (the civil war), changed by non-violence in the face of violent resistance (the civil rights movement), and encourages in its self-image of rugged individualism and self-protection the fascination with violence (the obsession our culture has with guns and gun rights). In fact, even some of the examples you give of supposedly acceptable areas of violent metaphor are dubious. It is one thing for someone to say to his girlfriend once that he'll do something violent if he sees her with another man. It is another to make repeated assertions of potential violence if he is not obeyed. Nowadays that sort of thing is taken a bit more seriously than it used to be, and for good reason. It is not the occasional use of violent rhetoric that is at issue here. It is the repeated. Surely you are not denying the considerable uptick in violent language and gestures so evident in our culture since the 2008 election?

- timteeter

January 10, 2011 at 2:59pm

No, Neil, the connection is not self-evident -- at least not yet. There's nothing to suggest that this guy was angry at Giffords for anything like the reasons that her district was under Palin's crosshairs, or the reasons she was subject to threats and vandalism after the health care vote. There's nothing to suggest that this person was inspired by Tea Party vitriol at all. Sorry, not yet. It's possible to learn more that might establish a link, but we haven't learned it yet. This guy isn't Timothy McVeigh. He's not a militia type, he's not a known right-winger, he was not known to be upset by immigration or health care reform, he was not known to espouse extreme versions of Tea Party views -- any of that would establish a link, but nothing like that has been uncovered. You say that this was a political killing. And yet this guy appears to have no politics that are consistent with any political agenda, no matter how nasty -- even the Tea Party's. He seems to have picked up on a potpourri of very weird stuff here on there on the Internet. His particular fixation with Giffords remains a mystery. I know that's frustrating for those of us who are just itching to blame Palin and the Tea Party for murder -- to self-righetously demonstrate the self-righteous and rather insidious notion that "words have consequences" -- but their words, however odious, do not appear to have had these consequences. What a disappointment! This seems a lot more like a school shooting than a political killing, and we should probably think about it more in those terms. As in, I don't like that a disturbed schizophrenic can waltz into a sporting goods store and buy a Glock.

- JakeH

January 10, 2011 at 3:07pm

Okay, "liberal reformer", I'll take the bait. Here are some of the "links" you request: 1. One, typical, link to increased vandalism against Democrats over the last year, related to healthcare debate: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2010/03/25/DI2010032500986.html 2. Here is Giffords herself, feeling threatened after Palin put "target" marks on Giffords' district. In this clip, Giffords warns Palin that she should consider the consequences of her rhetoric: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tTDiZZYCAs&feature=player_embedded More generally, the increased rhetoric of right-wingers since 2008 portraying themselves as some kind of freedom fighters against an Obama/Pelosi tyranny does naturally lend itself towards encouraging extremism, as I recall. Last I recall, the real Boston Tea Party had less to do with civility and compromise than with righteous violence against an oppressive government, and this mindset has caused a toxic element to enter our political discourse, imo.

- sokol8

January 10, 2011 at 3:09pm

Second link, of Giffords feeling threatened after Palin put "target" marks on Giffords' district http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tTDiZZYCAs&feature=player_embedded

- sokol8

January 10, 2011 at 3:15pm

NR 851651 says: "Right Wing Extremism" is not "rhetoric." I agree entirely. As I said on another thread, a distinction should be made between heated or incendiary political rhetoric, on the one hand, and the deeply held belief that the government is the enemy, on the other hand. A rhetorically heated political culture waxes and wanes, and can be blamed on both major political parties. Much more ominous is that fact there is a movement afoot, no longer on the fringes, that is anti-government, and that is based on the premise that the current government (Obama in particular) is foreign and is seeking to impose a Marxist, totalitarian regime that will rob us of our freedom. That movement is being stoked by demagogues like Palin, Sharon Angle, and, indeed, Newt Gingrich. It is dangerous, and, whether or not Loughner's actions can be tied to it, it is time that we take notice. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 10, 2011 at 3:17pm

There's no evidence that Loughner was a dues-paying member of a right-wing group, but his YouTube videos clearly show that he had absorbed a lot of their ideas. Currency backed by gold and silver, the tenth amendment and "the second constitution" (the Reconstruction Amendments) are all right-wing obsessions. David Wynn Miller has acknowledged that Loughner may have picked up his notion that the government controls minds by controlling grammar from his (Miller's) website. And there's also the report (not too well substantiated at this time, as far as I can tell) that law enforcement is looking into a possible connection with the racialist American Renaissance magazine. That strikes me as quite a lot of evidence linking Loughner to right-wing fringe thinking, and we're still waiting to see what "conscience dreaming" is all about. Now it may be true that Loughner didn't find these specific ideas in the words of mainstream conservative politicians or media personalities, but it seems to me nevertheless that the conservative movement's embrace of the Tea Party and similar groups has done a lot to legitimize paranoid and conspiratorial thinking generally and to promote the idea that the actions of the last Congress represented an existential threat to the nation that would justify "second amendment remedies." The crosshairs map is a red herring. The real problem is that the mainstream of the political right has been deliberately fostering and exploiting the fringe belief that "the government" is engaged in a conspiracy to institute a tyranny and that much of the power it currently exercises is illegitimate. Presumably, most of the people who hear this message don't fully accept its most extreme implications. But the pervasivenes of this paranoid narrative surely increases the likelihood that someone will not only take it to heart, but perhaps fix on the US Representative from his district as the agent of "the government" and its plans.

- maxgrober

January 10, 2011 at 3:53pm

Somebody has hacked into TNR's computers and is posting really dumb entries under Chait's name. Either that, or Chait's body has been inhabited by an alien. Send an urgent message to the other JC to rescue his friend!

- rayward

January 10, 2011 at 3:58pm

JC - does it not matter to you at all that this Congresswoman felt physical threatened and in danger due to right wing vitriol? And was then shot in the head at a political event? I mean, what more do you need? I'm afraid I'm with rayward on this. This persnickety obsession with finding any out - however strained and irrelevant, such as Lowry's truly dumb and desperate NY Post cover - for what's right in front of our faces is frustrating.

- WandreyCer

January 10, 2011 at 4:14pm

Wandrey- The fact that Giffords felt threatened by right wing vitriol, and then was in fact shot, does not prove that the shooter was motivated by right wing vitriol. On the other had, I don't think that claims that it was so motivated are "evidence free." There are accumulating reports that he held some of the same ideas that are the motifs for Palin, Angle and Becks of the world. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 10, 2011 at 4:43pm

Ugh NR143296, that feels so incredibly strained to me. It quacks like a duck, OK? The very fact that a Democratic public official felt that fear in the first place - to the point where she felt compelled to say something on live TV about it - is indictment enough of the right.

- WandreyCer

January 10, 2011 at 5:08pm

"Right Wing Extremism Is A Problem" Correct "But It Isn't This Problem." The evidence pro or con is not yet available. Chait is simply speculating, as is anyone else voicing any opinion. The only difference: Chait is paid to know better.

- drofnats1

January 10, 2011 at 5:10pm

It's not strained at all Wandrey. The question on the table is whether "right wing extremism" caused Loughner's attack. The fact that Giffords feared right wing extremism and then was shot by Loughner is not even evidence, much less proof that right wing extremism caused Loughner to shoot Giffords and the others. That said, as I mentioned, there is OTHER evidence, purely circumstantial so far, that he was so motivated. But let's also be fair about not conflating the "right" with this new anti-government movement that is trying to co-opt the right, but which mainstream Republicans themselves will surely soon come to fear. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 10, 2011 at 5:19pm

say it ain't so! Chait is going david brooks on us? No one, of course, can know exactly why a deranged person decides to murder. But the fact that he chose to murder a politician in the most charged political climate in decades suggests that we cannot make declarative statements such as "right wing rhetoric had nothing to do with it." He was surely listening -- intently -- to paranoid, conspiratorial anti-government rhetoric,. This rhetoric is almost exclusively the purview of the right -- increasingly the mainstream right. A sociologist would predict an increase in violence in this environment, and he would be proven correct by the ensuing data.

- mozier

January 10, 2011 at 5:42pm

I think mozier says it best. Chait's notion of cause and effect, and likelihood, are strange to say the least. As rhubarbs has pointed out, there is now a significant cumulation of deaths due to right-wing political terrorism, which this surely is whether the guy is sane or not. 52 deaths by rhubarbs' count. There is no example in the last 40 years or so of left-wing terrorism. The balance is 52-0. To say that this discrepancy has nothing to do with the manner in which the right conducts itself, its rhetoric, its grievances, its overall detachment from reality, defies all of our notions of cause and effect. Chait seems to demand a level of proof that is unachievable. That is not to say that we can know with specificity what were the triggers for this particular individual. There is a toxic stew of extremist rhetoric and behavior on the right. It is foolish to think it has no effects in the world beyond the electoral. When a large group of people becomes extremist, there are a few among them who will go the extra step and express that extremism through violence. It is a statistical certainty, as Mozier points out. Inevitably, there are also reasons, likely serendipitous, why this particular individual and not that one acted in this way. It matters not.

- roidubouloi

January 10, 2011 at 6:19pm

To those claiming Giffords' shooting was random or not politically motivated: Are you truly suggesting that if she had not been a member of Congress and a Democrat then the shooter would still have taken a taxi to Safeway and walked up and shot her in the head? Are you really saying there is no connection between her politics and her selection as a target? To those concerned about unfairly laying blame on those on the right: They were happy enough to be connected with people wearing "water the tree" tee shirts and carrying guns at political rallies during the elections. They had the choice to associate with these nuts or distance themselves from them and their vitriol. Now that the predictable -- and predicted -- has happened, it is too late to claim they are shocked, shocked! that such things could happen. They used the nuts to get votes, now the nuts may lose them votes. Tough. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

- Ouroboros

January 10, 2011 at 6:25pm

The sword thing was strictly metaphor. Metaphor. Paraphrasing Jesus.

- Ouroboros

January 10, 2011 at 6:29pm

"But let's also be fair about not conflating the "right" with this new anti-government movement that is trying to co-opt the right, but which mainstream Republicans themselves will surely soon come to fear." Dhurtado, haven't you heard that old saying? If you lie down with dogs, you might be rudely awakened when one of them starts firing off rounds.

- W_Bombay

January 10, 2011 at 6:37pm

W_Bombay- I am not by any means defending Republicans who have ridden the wave of the tea party movement. Indeed, I think it will come back to bite them (to use your dog imagery). But I don't think rhR traditional conservative thought -- though I may disagree with it -- has anything to do with the revolutionary ideology of the tea party. And I don't think it is particularly helpful to frame it as a right vs. left issue. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 10, 2011 at 8:36pm

Max, I read the same Times story this morning and was underwhelmed by the brief in support of right-wing connections. They remain thin and awfully fringe, to the point that the right/left dichotomy starts to seem meaningless. From The Guardian: "Former friends of Loughner have noted his apparent obsession with grammar [!] but only as one part of a wider pattern of erratic and confrontational behaviour. This included the stated belief that his former college was illegal under the US constitution, the space shuttle missions were faked, and the September 11 attacks were staged by the government, and the claim that the world we see does not actually exist." These sorts of paranoid notions are not Tea Party stock in trade -- pretty far from it, really. The Tea Party is now, unfortunately, a defined and popular political movement that claims many members of Congress and espouses mainly constitutional fundamentalism, strict economic libertarianism, federalism, and strong anti-illegal-immigration views. It's characterized by a sharp aversion to taxes, a deep suspicion of the federal government, and, in many cases, an eccentric fiscal conservatism that is excessively troubled by public debt, central banks, and the very nature of modern money. It's also characterized by a fundamentalist attitude toward capitalism and the view that "redistribution" is per se socialistic and wrong and oppressive. It uses the language of liberty vs. tyranny in its appeals. It says, "It's our money!" and "Let's take our country back!" As is common with reactionary movements, it looks backward, seeking the non-existent purity of long ago. It self-consciously -- in the very name -- identifies with American revolutionaries in a bid to get back to what it sees as fundamental American ideals, since corrupted and now under threat. I disagree strongly with all of this nonsense, but none of it amounts to a "conspiracy theory." Nor, I think, does it really amount to incitement to treason or civil war. Wandering around the University of Chicago, you'll probably run into a few well-dressed non-crazy proponents of something resembling this agenda. This guy seems far removed from any of this stuff. We have no evidence that he went to Tea Party rallies, followed Tea Party pundits, read Tea Party literature, or espoused views generally like those I just described, save the sole exception of the gold standard references. He's operating at a different, more irritatingly opaque level of crazy. He's picking up on the weirdest of weird fringe notions that are really nowhere near Palin or even Beck. That's the way it seems to me so far. As I've repeatedly said, we may learn more that will change this picture, but we haven't learned it yet. Someone above said that we're all just speculating. True, but that's sort of my point -- we should take the speculation down a notch. The Times coverage the day after the shooting featured a front-page story -- the lead analysis/feature -- headlined "Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics." The main idea of the story, stated in the second paragraph, was that "regardless of what led to the episode, it quickly focused attention on the degree to which inflammatory language, threats, and implicit instigations to violence have become a steady undercurrent in the nation's political culture." Note the CYA phrase, "regardless of what led to the episode." But what in fact led to the episode surely makes a difference. This story, though scrupulous in its adherence to the Voice of God Times style, makes an argument. It makes a point. It frames the narrative. It says how we should think about this incident. Right away, it's saying -- "regardless of what led to the episode" -- the take-away should be that the Tea Party, Palin, and their friends, are partly responsible. I don't think that's fair or responsible journalism or, indeed, the right way to think about this incident without more or different information.

- JakeH

January 10, 2011 at 9:28pm

At the end of the day Loughner did not go down to the Safeway to shoot the butcher or produce manager - he was sane enough to find someone to shoot so that his point, whatever it is, gets made. Whatever motivated this guy, his target seemed easy enough to find, well known and "targeted" by others - although certainly not literally. So let's skip all talk of "evidence" and whether he was in fact a crazy man or not and deal with the question a different way - why not the butcher?

- Zachsteph

January 10, 2011 at 9:46pm

But Jake, you are re-writing what the Times said, and then impugning it as irresponsible journalism. The Times did not say that regardless of what led to the shooting the take-away should be that Palin and friends were partly responsible. It said the incident should focus attention on the extent to which "imflammatory language, threats and and implicit instigations to violence have become a steady undercurrent in our political culture." And indeed it should, because the world-view of the tea party, Palin, Angle and their friends is eminently capable of producing such a result, even if it did not do so here. That world-view goes farther than your description of it. It holds that the current government is constitutionally illegitmate, indeed that it is foreign and seeks to impose tyranny, and that if it cannot be unseated via the democratic process, it should be unseated via violent revolution. The Loughner incident should focus attention on that ideology because it had political, anti-government overtones, and, at minimum, mimics the result that could be produced by the tea party, Palin, Angle ideology.

- NR143296

January 10, 2011 at 11:05pm

Why not the butcher? Because Palin, Angle and the rest of the right-wing nut jobs who like to hint at a violence directed at their political opposition didn't have the butcher in mind, now did they? That is doubtless too "thin" for JakeH, but then it is hard to imagine what would be thick enough for him. If the killer prostrated himself in the courtroom and declared that Sarah Palin's speeches inspired him do it, I have no doubt that JakeH would explain to us that, just because he finds it convenient to say so, that doesn't mean it is true and we really don't have any evidence and the guy is clearly crazy. In other words, there is no evidence thick enough for Jake, certainly none that could be obtained short of the End of Days. One cannot also help but snicker at the sudden right-wing preoccupation with the need for "evidence" to support factual claims. That hasn't slowed them down a bit in the last 30 years ("death panels" anyone?) in either direction. They make preposterous claims that fly in the face of all available evidence and the ignore persuasive evidence of any reality inconvenient to their collective political fantasy life. In that light, how should we regard their sudden devotion to evidence that must not only exist before our eyes but rise to the level of statistical certainty? Same bullshit, different day.

- roidubouloi

January 11, 2011 at 8:14am

Jonathan, congratulations on being defended by David Brooks today. I guess. Meanwhile, consider the title of your post. If right wing extremism is a problem, but not THIS problem, then just what kind of a problem is it?

- timteeter

January 11, 2011 at 8:31am

I love how Democrats are so eager to get their win in against the Republicans that they are basically just acting like a mob. I'm glad Chait has enough sensiblity and calm to actually try analyzing the situation as a whole instead of trying to make correlation into causation. I think Democrats, including myself, agree that the left and right are not equal in terms of their hate mongering and that the right has been using it to gain political momentum but as much as you guys want this to be directly linked to them, we just don't know yet. We know it was planned, we know that he did have some right wing/libertarian ideas but we also know that he thought well of Hitler. This guy's motivation could range from political to cultural to just plain deranged. Are Republicans wrong to continue using fear and hate to motivate their base? YES. I think everyone can agree to that, but to try and make this an open and shut 'it's the Republicans' case is excessive. Could the Republicans directly inspire someone to do such things? Probably, but like Chait said this is not it. Republicans, however, should really evaluate their tactics and realize that their hate-mongering and their complicity in the hate-mongering of their base is dangerous. I honestly believe that people like Glenn Beck enjoy pushing the fringe of their base to the brink of violence and then stepping back when it actually happens. However, people need to stop acting like those of us out there who don't want to just jump into the mob are crazy idiots who can't tell left from right. Honestly, you guys are starting to sound like the group you're criticizing. ALSO, can we stop pretending that Chait and the rest of us don't see how the Republicans have been hate-mongering? A lot of comments are along the lines of, 'but you just don't get it, the Republicans are doing something bad.' We know and we agree.

- tgatz85

January 11, 2011 at 9:47am

Bombay -- "But let's also be fair about not conflating the "right" with this new anti-government movement that is trying to co-opt the right, but which mainstream Republicans themselves will surely soon come to fear." I will be glad to distance responsible conservatives from the nuts trying to co-opt their movement, as long as they themselves are willing to distance themselves from the nuts, and do it before, not after, mass killings occur. If Palin never dreamed that those graphics could be taken for gun-sights rather than surveyor symbols, she could have said so when Rep. Giffords criticized her for using them almost a year ago. After the shooting, it's too damn late. Likewise, if responsible conservatives wish not to be lumped together with extremists, they must clearly articulate their differences and disavow their rhetoric and tactics. As a legal case, yes, there is no evidence I have seen to indicate a direct link between the crime and Republican politicians. But in a political environment, that is not enough.The Democratic party was not responsible for Jane Fonda's behavior in Hanoi, but they suffered for it. What goes around comes around.

- Ouroboros

January 11, 2011 at 10:48am

Roid says, "Why not the butcher? Because Palin, Angle and the rest of the right-wing nut jobs who like to hint at a violence directed at their political opposition didn't have the butcher in mind, now did they? That is doubtless too 'thin' for JakeH, but then it is hard to imagine what would be thick enough for him." The fact that the Tea Party didn't like Giffords is not any sort of evidence -- thin or otherwise -- that this guy was obsessed with Giffords for similar reasons. His interest in Giffords predated Palin's crosshairs. He had a copy of Mein Kampf. He might have been antisemitic. And yet, nobody is jumping to *that* conclusion. We're not using this occasion to do a lot of soul-searching about antisemitism in America. A few are talking about the mentally ill and access to guns, which are germane issues, but those discussions aren't the headliners. Why not? Because those discussions would not really help us attack the right for its vitriol. They would not help us pin blame on Tea Party types, which is plainly what we're interested in doing, so we fit this incident into that preconceived narrative -- we try to jam a round peg into a square hole. It's not hard to imagine what would be a plausible link between Tea Party rhetoric and this shooting. I suggested several possible links before, which amount to a yes answer to the question, "Is this guy a Tea Party sort?" He's obviously mentally disturbed, but he could still be a Tea Party sort. But, was he? Did he talk the Tea Party talk? It doesn't appear that he did. He seems to have latched onto various ultra-fringe views that don't generally characterize Tea Party politics, or any political agenda. NR143296 says that my decription of the Tea Party agenda is too tame: "That world-view goes farther than your description of it. It holds that the current government is constitutionally illegitmate, indeed that it is foreign and seeks to impose tyranny, and that if it cannot be unseated via the democratic process, it should be unseated via violent revolution." I don't think that this extreme version describes your typical Tea Party voter or Tea Party pundit or member of Congress or Sarah Palin, but let's stipulate that it's an extreme Tea Party view that finds expression among some of their angrier followers and is disturbingly consistent with the occasional extreme and out-of-bounds remark to come out of even Tea Party representatives and pundits. It's certainly right-wing and fits the worldview of the militia movement. So, was this guy a militia sort? Did he hold these sorts of extreme anti-government views? It just doesn't seem that way. He seems to be anti-government, but in a stranger way. As in, the government is controlling our minds through grammar. As in, the government faked space missions and staged 9/11. These sorts of paranoid notions just don't fit with the Tea Party agenda or even the militia movement. You just won't hear them on Fox or talk radio or at Tea Party rallies. NR143296 goes on to say, Well, at the very least, extreme right-wing rhetoric *could* inspire right-wing terrorism, even if this was not an example of it. So it could, but I still have a problem with then using this occasion to focus on right-wing rhetoric like Palin's crosshairs. Why? Because just making the connection means that we're already fixing responsibility, and, even taking an expansive view of cause and effect, absent genuine links, that's really not fair at all. If Giffords had been shot for personal reasons, or shot in a hold-up, nobody would be focusing on Palin's crosshairs and similar rhetoric, because the evidence would then clearly exclude a Tea Party-induced angry climate as the cause. But so long as the cause remains somewhat mysterious, so long as we can get that round peg in the square hole with a good deal of hammering, we're going to keep at it. That doesn't seem honest to me. I think we should be precise and honest about these sorts of things. Imprecise public debates is how we went to war in Iraq, and how so many could connect Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Also, I bristle at the pious reflections that are dominating the media reaction to this event to the effect that we should all calm down and take it down a notch. I bristle at the Stewart/Colbert construction that the issue in today's political climate is "sanity vs. fear," or anger vs. civility. When we say things like "Clam down, take it easy" in other contexts, we usually follow that with the soothing statement, "It's not *that* important." The problem is, as Chait says, these issues that get people worked up *are* important, very important. Being exercised and passionate is actually the one thing -- the only thing -- that the Tea Party has right! Sometimes, we *should* be angry and afraid. In the run-up to the Iraq War, I can think of one popular pundit who routinely got angry about what was happening and routinely asked tough questions before a large audience -- Keith Olbermann. Frankly, we could have used an angrier politics then. And yet, when we get on our high horse about civil public deliberation, as we're doing now, Keith Olbermann, I'm sure, won't be spared, because, of course, both sides must be equally guilty of everything. In good Broderite fashion, we'll hear regretful assessments of our politics as bitterly divided and characterized by unprecedented anger. But none of that is the real problem. The real problem with the Tea Party isn't that it's angry. It's that it's ignorant -- wrong on the merits. I'm far more concerned myself with stupidity than civility. What's the difference between, on the one hand, a left-wing protester who stood on a street corner with a sign saying something to the effect that George W. Bush is not a legitimate president because the Supreme Court stole the the election for him, and, on the other hand, a right-wing protestor standing on that same corner today with a sign saying that Obama is not a legitimate president because he was born in Kenya? I don't think that the difference is helpfully thought of as a matter of extremism or anger level. The real difference is that the left-wing protestor has the better point. If we make it about anger, that means I can't get angry, and I get angry about lots of stuff. I sometimes even say borderline things as a result. We must be tolerant of that. Such words could inspire someone to violence, but a rule that says that we must never say anything that might inspire a nutjob to violence is an impossible and undesirable standard. Yes, the occasional remark or image or whatever will be out-of-bounds, but that line is fuzzy and fluid and I'm not particularly interested in policing it more aggressively than we already do. Some will object that Beck and the Tea Party are guilty not just of the odd remark but of a whole incendiary worldview that amounts to incitement to armed revolt against an illegitimate government. I think that's overstating it, frankly. One could take Tea Party logic to a dangerous extreme, but one can take most logic to a dangerous extreme. Being highly suspicious of the federal government, or thinking that the prevailing interpretation of the Constitution is very wrong, and that much of what the government does is therefore not constitutional or legal or legitimate -- these views in thesmelves are not, I'm sorry to say, out of bounds, and they have a long intellectual history in this country. Even the view that the Second Amendment is meant to serve as a popular check on federal tyranny is not without intellectual pedigree, even though such a view uncomfortably opens the door to legitimizing armed revolt or resistance under unspecified, though presumably tyrannical, circumstances. Like I said before, when people start saying, "We have to watch what we say," or "Words have consequences," I get nervous. These are insidious notions. They might come back to bite me. Yes, some images and remarks cross a line into the truly dangerous and offensive, but such incidents are not the norm, even on the popular right. Jonah Goldberg can write a book that compares liberals to Nazis -- that's okay, I guess -- but the Tea Party can't put up a billboard that compares Obama to Hitler and Stalin. This is the fuzzy line I was talking about. We already police that line and argue over various incidents that some people think go too far. So I don't see the purpose of the proposed national reflection on anger and civility in politics, unless the idea is to induce a general cooling off and toning down, which I'm not actually in favor of anyway.

- JakeH

January 11, 2011 at 12:56pm

Ouroboros, just to be clear: That was a direct quote from NR143296 that I was responding to. You and I are in agreement.

- W_Bombay

January 11, 2011 at 1:16pm

I really do appreciate that Chait is trying to be an impartial and fair voice. He serves an important role in this debate of actually trying to live out the civility and fairness he preaches. That said, I still disagree with him, and strongly so. It really is a crime that there has been such a spike in hate mail, vandalism, and threats to (predominantly) democratic Congresspeople and president Obama, which is linked to right wing propaganda, and I think a spade needs to be called a spade. While it is clear that republicans have added to an aggressive, polarizing public sphere, unfortunately it is very hard to pin any real 'causality' with any one episode. Thus there is this squishiness where you can't prove any single case, even as the number of cases may triple in the aggregate. Alas, human beings aren't simple, and it's hard to prove what single 'cause' makes someone do something, similar to how it's hard to prove you are drinking a Coke b/c you just saw an ad, even if the ad campaign doubled the number of Coke drinkers. If you can't 'prove' any single case, then the right can claim that they have no responsibility for the macroscopic spike in episodes. Proverbially, you can say if you don't prove the 'tree', then you can't prove the 'forest' either. Our society is in the midst of a forest of increased incivility, disproportionately fueled by the rightwing, and we are arguing about each tree and missing the obvious in front of our noses.

- sokol8

January 11, 2011 at 2:42pm

You are quite missing the point, Jake. It does not matter whether some specific Tea Party meme motivated this killing, and it is impossible to know. Culture is much broader and more pervasive than any single element and you can almost never draw a one-to-one linkage between a specific cultural artifact and a specific act. Fox News, the Tea Party, the Republican Party, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, the whole lot of them are active participants and creators of a toxic stew of incessant lies, hatred, paranoia, and extremist rhetoric. All of them participate. All of them contribute. Hence, we have have now in American a large body of political extremists unlike anything we have seen since the KKK in the 20s. When there is a large number of extremists and they have public sanction from officeholders like Palin and media figures, they are reinforced. It is inevitable that when the mean of a group like that shifts far from the center that there will be greater numbers in the extreme of the extreme, that people who are inclined toward political violence will be encouraged to believe it is legitimate and desirable, and that more will act on it. That is why rhubarbs counts 52 deaths in the recent past from rightwing political violence and none from leftwing political violence. This is where extremism comes from, extremist rhetoric, and the sense that they are part of a larger, legitimate group is what enables the violently inclined to be violent, because it is only public sanction and disapproval that otherwise restrains them. Your sensitivity over the need for rhetorical restraint is also excessive. We discourage people from saying kike, nigger, and all the rest of those racial insults with public disapproval. Public discourse is not poorer as a result. Similarly, the conservatives who think that it is fun and profitable to exploit extremist rhetoric for political gain should meet with a wall of public scorn. And right now, in the wake of this horrifying violence, is the place to start. They should all be deplored, they should all be told that we will no longer tolerate their excesses. The should all be told that they are and will be held responsible for the most extreme reactions to their extreme rhetoric.

- roidubouloi

January 11, 2011 at 4:33pm

Bombay -- Noted. My apologies for not reading more carefully.

- Ouroboros

January 11, 2011 at 4:44pm

"You are quite missing the point, Jake." Am I indeed? "It does not matter whether some specific Tea Party meme motivated this killing, and it is impossible to know." How about *any* Tea Party meme? I think it does matter whether this guy was plausibly motivated or inspired or egged on by Tea Party rhetoric, which is the conclusion you jump to. No, it's not impossible to know. There could be loads of evidence that this guy was a Tea Party sort. There isn't any. He seems closer to the tin foil hat crowd -- barely political, if at all. "It is inevitable that when the mean of a group like that shifts far from the center that there will be greater numbers in the extreme of the extreme, that people who are inclined toward political violence will be encouraged to believe it is legitimate and desirable, and that more will act on it." You continue to assume that this guy is even on that shifting continuum at all -- that he's the "extreme of the extreme" version of "Fox News, the Tea Party, the Republican Party, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, the whole lot of them." I don't think that's established. I don't think, for example, that that grammar guy Loughner was apparently interested in is just a more extreme version of Beck. I think he's on another wavelength altogether. "And right now, in the wake of this horrifying violence, is the place to start. They should all be deplored, they should all be told that we will no longer tolerate their excesses. The should all be told that they are and will be held responsible for the most extreme reactions to their extreme rhetoric." Once again, you just assume that this is the "most extreme reaction to their extreme rhetoric," as opposed to a freak, unrelated event. "Your sensitivity over the need for rhetorical restraint is also excessive. We discourage people from saying kike, nigger, and all the rest of those racial insults with public disapproval." Yes, we agree on racial slurs. What else do you think we should stamp out? Is Jonah Goldberg's book still okay, or not? What about any reference to the word "tyranny" in the context of Obama or the Democratic agenda? No fighting, shooting, killing, or war metaphors in politics? Is "anti-government" rhetoric off the table? You tell me, roid, what's the new speech code? What's under *your* crosshairs? I think it would be tough to design a speech code that could, on the one hand, assure robust public debate, and, on the other, provide assurance that nobody would be inspired to anger or violence.

- JakeH

January 11, 2011 at 5:23pm

roid.. you're missing the point. Once again, no one here is really disagreeing with the idea that extreme and radical speech is bad. We are disagreeing about correlation vs. causation with this particular shooting. The shooter may also have been anti-semitic so we have no idea if it was pure political motivation. You guys can keep scremaing at us all day about how hate-mongering and extreme rhetoric are bad but we know this and are not arguing that.

- tgatz85

January 11, 2011 at 5:59pm

Since you don't think that any speech other than the racial slur is questionable, Jake, then I am perfectly free to deplore the extremist right, Limbaugh, Palin, the lot of them, and to insist that they are the proximate cause of this death and to insist that you should too. You have no business disagreeing with me. That is political correctness run amok, your personal speech code. What makes your speech code better than mine? Nothing. Mine is better than yours. I get it tgatz. But I am disagreeing with you. I think there is a direct line from the hate-filled extremist speech of the right and the 52 deaths (according to Rhubarbs) as a result of right-wing terrorism -- with none attributable to anything or anyone from the left. It is impossible to determine what made this guy think what he thought. But the climate of violent, extremist rhetoric matters. 52. That's why there are 52. That's why the guy wasn't aiming for the butcher. I think both you and Jake are making tendentious arguments that deny rather obvious reality. The standard of proof you demand as to the impact of culture on behavior is unattainable. Yet we generally accept this as true even though the extent is forever uncertain. If no one thought that speech had an impact on behavior, why would anyone bother? And what reason is there to believe that the only behavior in response to political speech is voting behavior? None. That's just plain silly.

- roidubouloi

January 11, 2011 at 7:34pm

Jake H- First, feel free to refer to me as Dhurtado. The “NR bla bla bla” is there because I have found it too frustrating to try to get the Dhurtado tag back. Second, as always, I enjoy your erudition, but, as Basman said recently, we ought to take care not to mischaracterize one another’s positions, and then critique the mischaracterization. I agree with you on the evidentiary issue. On the issue of whether this nevertheless is an occasion to critically examine the revolutionary ideology of the Tea Party, I agreed with the NY Times’ observation that “the incident should focus attention on the extent to which ‘imflammatory language, threats and and implicit instigations to violence have become a steady undercurrent in our political culture.’” I stated “indeed it should, because the world-view of the tea party, Palin, Angle and their friends is eminently capable of producing such a result, even if it did not do so here.” I did not imply any a causal relationship between Tea Party ideology and Loughner’s actions. To illustrate my point, imagine that one indiscriminately sprays bullets into the woods with a rifle, hoping to hit a deer. Suppose a person in the woods is hit with a bullet and dies. The immediate supposition might be that the victim was hit with one of indiscriminate shooter’s bullets. But a factual investigation reveals that the fatal bullet came from some other source. The indiscriminate shooter would not then be criminally culpable. Nor would there be any causal relationship whatsoever between the indiscriminate shooting and the victim’s death. But it may nevertheless be a occasion to examine the wisdom of indiscriminately emptying a rifle into the woods, because the indiscriminate shooting was eminently capable of producing the identical result. Regarding the nature and scope of Tea Party ideology, I defer to Kilgore’s article on this site regarding Second Amendment theology. The very name of the Tea Party implies a revolutionary ideology, and an express adherent of that ideology (Sharron Angle) very nearly became a U.S. Senator. I am not for a second suggesting any kind of “policing” or suppression of that ideology, but we do need to recognize and call-out that ideology for what it is. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 12, 2011 at 12:30am

My speech code is, tell the truth. I don't give a damn about political correctness. I care about correctness. I think my rule is better than yours. The Tea Party's main problem is that it violates my rule, not that it violates yours. You're the p.c. enforcer of the two of us. You're the one taking great high holy umbrage and offense. I'm not so very concerned with means or style. The more pressing question always is, who's right and who's wrong. Yes, yes, there are some statements and some words and so on that are out-of-bounds, as I've repeatedly said, but I don't think we need to, as I said, police that line more aggressively than we already do, and I think we should generally err on the side of tolerance of means and style when it comes to public debate. The tendency is to bypass substance in political argument and go straight to umbrage. It's a fine distraction. When someone says that Obama is tyrannical, my feeling isn't, "How dare that person use the word tyranny! He's inciting armed revolt! Treason, I say! Treason! The apology line starts here!" My feeling is, "Man, that's stupid! You're a stupid ass!" Roid, your arguments really don't answer ours. They amount to self-satisfied sneering. I don't think you're trying. You repeat this number of victims of right-wing terrorism, as though they have anything to do with this case. You refuse to acknowledge the evidence we do have as to this incident, which suggests that he's, as I said, a tin foil hat sort, and you refuse to acknowledge the utter lack of evidence that he's a Tea Party sort -- evidence we would expect to have at this point. Your answer is that it's impossible to know. That's garbage -- your willful insistence not only that we ignore the evidence, but that there could never be any evidence, is really ludicrous. As I said, there could be loads of evidence that this guy was a Tea Party sort. There isn't any. Meanwhile, the evidence we do have suggests that his motivations are not extreme versions of Tea Party views. You repeat this butcher line as though the mere fact that he went after Giffords establishes a link between Palin and these murders. Also ludicrous. He was obviously preoccupied with Giffords for some time for reasons that are, at this point, mysterious, although there's nothing to suggest that he was angry at her for any of the reasons that the Tea Party was angry at her -- i.e., health care reform, opposition to the immigration law, helping Barack Hussein Obama's tyrannical agenda, and so forth. He obviously had weird ideas about government -- e.g., mind control through grammar -- and she's his Congresswoman. She's a public figure. She's Jewish. She's also a woman, a pretty woman, and alienated weirdos have been known to fixate on pretty women. If Arizona had Illinois's gun laws, it's possible that this wouldn't have happened. Can we say the same if Angle or Palin or Beck hadn't uttered some over-the-line statements? If the health care town halls had been merely heated but never offensively so? If Tea Party leaders were always, instead of usually, within the bounds of acceptable public debate (though still wrong and stupid)? That just seems so unlikely. Sorry, you can't just get around all these problems with the insidious, self-righteous pronouncement that "words matter." Your argument that words can impact behavior is a total red herring that nobody disputes. If nobody ever said anything that might inspire violence, we'd all have to do a lot less talking. Most religions would have to close up shop, for starters. We'd have to end political conflict. We'd have to end conflict, period. Anything that might arouse anger or passion would be disallowed. That's not a workable or desirable standard.

- JakeH

January 12, 2011 at 1:13am

Dhurtado, I like your analogy -- very smart. I'm almost, but not quite, persuaded that it fits. Maybe you can bring me home. What do you think of these analogies, which I think might more closely resemble this situation: A popular comedian has said some nasty things about Islam. He's received death threats related to his anti-Islam statements. Some prominent Muslim figures have forcefully denounced the comedian for those statements, though they have not actually advocated violence against him. He's murdered and the murderer is instantly captured. There's no evidence that the murderer was a Muslim, evidence we would expect to see immediately. There's some evidence to suggest that he thought the victim was an evil force contaminating his precious bodily fluids. The lead analysis story in the Times the next day is headlined, "Murder Puts Focus on Incendiary Islamic Rhetoric." Analogy 2: An abortion doctor is murdered by a pro-life extremist. The Times story the next day is headlined, "Murder Puts Focus on Incendiary Anti-Abortion-Rights Rhetoric." Paul Krugman has a column that takes pro-life forces to task for their inflammatory worldview that "abortion is murder," a view which, in his estimation, is sure to inspire violence. Would you have any problem with either of these Times stories or the hypothetical Krugman column?

- JakeH

January 12, 2011 at 1:59am

Sorry, Jake, but you are the one playing rhetorical games, not me. First, in response to criticism of the rhetoric of the right, you introduce the notion of a "speech code," as if what were being advocated were legal enforcement of some kind against particular speech. That is absurd, Speech is generally free, with rare exceptions, and free speech includes criticism of other speech. Ironically, while arguing that almost no speech should be considered out of bounds (with the odd exception of racial slurs that you are unable to explain), you then proceed to insist that speech you don't like -- connecting right-wing extremist violence to this particular violence -- is out of bounds. In response, you claim that your only standard for acceptable speech is "correctness." Really? And who is to decide what speech is correct? You? What we end up with in the end is something that, by application of your rules, can only be described as the JakeH speech code. You want to argue with the criticism, go right ahead, but your claim that the criticism you don't like is peculiarly illegitimate as a speech code is not supportable. And, ironically, your very argument is more than sufficient to justify the speech with which to take issue, because if your speech code were acceptable as such, then so is mine. You do not seem to understand that you are tangled up in your own rhetorical underwear here, but I don't know how to make it any clearer to you. So much for your procedural complaints. On the merits of whether this particular criticism of this particular speech is justified, you argue that there is insufficient evidence to connect this crime to this speech and, absent that, the criticism cannot be supported. On this score, I think you fail to understand the nature of statistical evidence and that much of the evidence on which we rely for ordinary decision-making, if not most, is of this nature. Your standard of evidence is implicitly that of criminal responsibility. But we are not talking about criminal responsibility. No one is suggesting that Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and the rest of the right wing-nuts with their incendiary speech ought to be indicted for murder or conspiracy. To oversimplify a bit for purposes of clarity, if we knew that creating a climate of hatred against public officeholders, asserting that they are engaged in various conspiracies, and suggesting that violence may be the necessary outcome if they cannot otherwise be "stopped" were certain to result in political terrorism and 52 deaths, would we be justified in criticizing that speech even if it were impossible ever to know where or when the violence would occur or to connect any particular act to that speech, even after the fact? I think we would be justified in criticizing that speech and discouraging it with our disapproval. We can draw boundaries between the acceptable and the unacceptable, just as we do with racial epithets. That does not mean that the boundaries and breaches thereof can be free from argument. So what? If we are alert to incendiary, extremist speech, we will criticize it and sometimes that criticism will be excessive and there will be arguments about that too. Better the argument about whether particular speech tends toward the extreme. In the real world, we do not walk about in traffic because it presents unacceptable risks. We do not demand to know whether, on this particular day, we will be hit by a car. We want substances that can cause an increased risk of diseases kept out of our food. We do not ask to know whether, on this particular day, what we eat will precipitate our death 20 years hence. Most of the evidence upon which we base our prudential decisions is of just this nature. We can prudentially decide that the sort of extremism of Palin and Beck is dangerous, and we are not without evidence. The evidence is the level of right-wing political violence in contradistinction to the absence of left-wing political violence. Is that proof certain? Of course not. We seldom have that, even when we conduct a criminal trial. If we demanded your standard of proof, we would be incapable of deciding anything. If we accept the principle that there can be a statistically bad outcome even thought we can never draw a specific link between the general cause and the specific effect, as is often the case, then the question is only what level of evidence is sufficient for us to demand greater prudence. We have evidence that there is a significant level of right-wing political violence i our country and zero left-wing political violence. If one is persuaded that the best explanation for the prevalence of right-wing political violence is the prevalence of right-wing hate speech and rhetorical encouragement of violence -- you may not be, but that connection is as plausible as most any that we commonly make on prudential grounds -- then there is every reason to draw the connection between this political violence, however crazy the guy, and that speech, because we will almost never be able to do better. However peculiar and idiosyncratic this guys thoughts, what we already know about him locates his particular preoccupations squarely in the midst of the toxic stew of right-wing extremist rhetoric about government, government control, tyranny, etc. The chance that he will turn out to have committed these crimes to avenge the depredations of corporate American on working people and to hasten the socialist revolution are nil. That is enough. We don't need to have the shooter carrying a copy of one of Sarah Palin's speeches or Glenn Beck's rants in his pocket. Basically, Jake, you are playing bait and switch. The appropriate standard of decision here is not that of direct, personal responsibility, for which we have a very high standard of proof. It is the standard we apply to a myriad of actions that seem to carry risk of harm with very little to redeem them as serving a social good. That is so obvious that your only response is to retreat to the slippery slope argument, that if we are disapproving of extremist speech, there will soon be little political speech left. Objectively, the chance of that is also nil. There are times when we need someone to point out that speech is overly socially censored -- Lenny Bruce, say. These are not those times. We do not have a problem of overly constrained political rhetoric.

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 5:02am

Roid... here's the deal. If you want to create a situation where there is 'causation' and not just correlation then, yes, you need proof. You need to have information on what what specifically pushed him to shoot those people. And, yes, him carrying around a speech from Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin would be a great way to establish that link, even though I would still question that link if those speeches did not mention or hint at killing people. What you are talking about, even though you think you're not, is correlation. There is likely correlation between the shooting and the hateful rhetoric on the right. I agree that if a Republican had said, 'go shoot these people' that there would be a strong case for directly linking speech and action. Unfortunately, what we have is people on the right spouting off their opinions and as much as I despise Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck it would be unnerving if people could start running around shooting people and then point the finger at someone they had listened to before the shooting who never said anything about killing anyone. What I do agree with is that the right is creating an atmosphere that strongly correlates with violence and that they should really reconsider their tactics before that atmosphere inspires more people to become violent. Also, while I do not believe they are directly responsible for this shooting, I think it would serve them well to take responsiblity for their hand in creating such a heated environment. We also need to remember that the economy has been in the tank and that people aren't happy with government right now. For all we know, this guy might also hate Republicans. He sounds more like an Anarchist than anything else. A lot of factors probably combined to bring this man to shoot these people and I think that we, as citizens, have a right to ask our politicians to cool down the rhetoric but I also think that it's going too far to say radio hosts pushed this killer to kill when it could have been inspired by anti-semitism as well. We just don't know for sure yet. Can speech make people violent or make them more likely to kill? Yes. Was that the case in this particular shooting? We don't know yet. He was also anti-semitic. As things unfold maybe we will find out.

- tgatz85

January 12, 2011 at 10:20am

Tgatz, I just do not agree. The old saw about correlation and causation is only half right. If there is a high correlation, then the likelihood is that either A causes B, B causes A, or they have a common cause. A great deal of what we take as evidence is in the form of correlation because you cannot go back and make do-overs. That does not mean that correlation is the end of the story. You still have to construct a plausible causal chain, plausible in light of all the other things we know about causality and correlation. But you cannot dismiss correlation as lack of evidence. It most certainly is evidence. On another thread, IowaBeauty made an analogy to global warming. That is correct. If I drive a car, I add to the burden of carbon in the atmosphere, and carbon in the atmosphere causes global warming. Can we run a controlled experiment on the earth to "prove" that? No. Is there ample evidence in the form of correlation between carbon and temperature? Yes. Does that mean that I personally caused the latest hurricane? No, of course not. Does it mean that I have no responsibility for my contribution do the problem? No, it does not mean that either. In terms of the political atmosphere and temperature, as IowaBeauty correctly calls them, we are not all equal. The contributions of media and political figures is a four or five magnitudes greater than mine. Not only is their contribution magnified, but their behavior inspires others. So, if one believes, as I do, that there is ample evidence that the total atmosphere of extremist rhetoric is part of what motivates extremists to shoot politicians, and that the extremism in our era is almost entirely a right-wing phenomenon with the results to show for it, it is perfectly appropriate to hold people like Palin and Beck responsible for their out-sized contribution to the atmosphere in which these acts occur. It is completely irrelevant whether Loughner was thinking about Palin or the Tea Party when he shot those people. He exists in a stew of toxic rhetoric that is going to have this effect on a certain number of unbalanced individuals. Part of what reduces the risk of this harm is if the society as a whole deplores the extremists rhetoric. That is what we have to do. For the unbalanced mind, the difference between "Go shoot these people" and "Don't retreat, reload." is nonexistent. Those who are not nuts will not shoot anyone in either case. Some of the unbalanced will because they don't see any difference, there is no difference, and they are unbalanced enough to respond to the pervasive atmosphere of hatred, demonization, and advocacy of violence.

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 11:33am

Roid.. we are agreeing. You said in your second paragraph exactly what I have been trying to say. what I said : "Also, while I do not believe they are directly responsible for this shooting, I think it would serve them well to take responsiblity for their hand in creating such a heated environment. " what you said: "Is there ample evidence in the form of correlation between carbon and temperature? Yes. Does that mean that I personally caused the latest hurricane? No, of course not. Does it mean that I have no responsibility for my contribution do the problem? No, it does not mean that either." Once again, things can be correlated and people can take responsiblity as one of many factors that may be contributing to something, but that does not create a DIRECT link or causation which you just said in the statement above. Is it still important that we talk about and be upset about he hate-mongering on the right? Of course, but this particular shooting was not directly caused by them. Iowa makes a point that no one has really been arguing against, and that is that people should take responsibility for their extreme rhetoric. I agree.

- tgatz85

January 12, 2011 at 11:58am

Yet you insist, tgatz, that the extremist rhetoric is of no consequence, and cannot be held responsible for encouraging violence, because it is not the "proximate cause" of this particular act. That is not a sensible definition of causation except in a very limited legal context in which we seek to hold someone personally responsible for a particular outcome. If the social environment leads to such heinous acts, then the people who create that environment should be held morally responsible. They cannot hide behind the claim that their rhetoric is harmless. Why do you? Of what importance is your notion of DIRECT causation?

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 6:01pm

Jake- As to your first analogy, I would take the statement, “Murder Puts Focus on Incendiary Islamic Rhetoric,” as an assertion of fact, not a normative assertion. So, the statement, “(Arizona) Murder Puts Focus on Incendiary Anti-Government Rhetoric” would be a factually true statement, regardless of whether the murder SHOULD have inspired a focus on incendiary anti-government rhetoric. I think the proposition that you are challenging is that the Arizona murder SHOULD be an occasion for examining incendiary anti-government rhetoric. Assuming that you are interpreting the headline to be normative, I think your analogy would nevertheless require at least two modifications to come closer to being on all fours with the Arizona shooting. First, the prominent Muslim figures would have had to at least impliedly advocated violence. Second, it would have to be as likely that a non-Muslim would be influenced by the prominent Muslims’ statements as that a non-Tea Party member would be influenced by the revolutionary rhetoric of the leading members of the Tea Party. I believe the latter to be untrue. But the more important factor is the former. If there was in fact not a hint of the advocacy of violence in the Muslim leaders’ denunciation of the comedian, then I would agree that the situation would not be an appropriate occasion for examining incendiary Islamic rhetoric. On the other hand, if the Muslim leaders did implicitly advocate violence, then I think the murder would be an appropriate occasion for admonishing Muslim leaders to be responsible in their public expression, even if there was no evidence of causation. As to our second analogy, again, I think the proposition you would challenge is that the murder of the abortionist SHOULD put focus on incendiary anti-abortion-rights rhetoric. In this case, however, you are positing that the murder was in fact performed by an anti-abortion extremist. You are not positing, I take it, that the pro-life forces have expressly or impliedly advocated violence against abortionists. I think that is what you would have to do in order to make the analogy hold. If pro-life forces had expressly or impliedly advocated violence against abortionists, and an anti-abortion extremist had murdered an abortionist, then clearly that would be an occasion for examining extremist anti-abortion rhetoric, even if no direct causal link between the rhetoric and the murder could be established. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 12, 2011 at 8:26pm

Roid, my problem isn't one of direct vs. indirect causation, or legal vs. moral culpability. My problem is that even under a standard of *very indirect* causation, even under a non-legal standard of moral responsibility, this incident, contrary to the instant analysis and speculation, doesn't appear to be the result of the Tea Party culture and climate. It doesn't appear even that the Tea Party culture and climate was a contributing factor. It doesn't appear that Loughner's motivations coincide with or are correlated with -- or whatever language of connection you want to use -- Tea Party themes and rhetoric. It's not a question of how loose to make the causal link. I'm looking for *any* causal link. It's clear that you don't want to accept that point or that you disagree with it. But let's focus on it for just a second: If Giffords had been shot in a robbery, nobody would be discussing Tea Party rhetoric, right? If Giffords had been shot because of a personal dispute, nobody would be discussing Tea Party rhetoric. There wouldn't be any link whatsoever. So there are cases where the facts would decisively exclude Tea Party influence. Granted, this is not one of those cases, in that the facts don't easily, obviously, and decisively exclude any Tea Party influence. But I think it seems much closer to those cases than you do. It's true that Giffords, a Democratic Congresswoman, was deliberately targeted. The same could be said about Hinckley's targeting of Reagan. I look at Loughner and see more of a Travis Bickle type. I'm not feeling Tea-Party-ish vibes here. You're right that he wasn't seeking to foment socialist revolution. But that doesn't mean that he must have been fomenting right-wing revolution. You neglect the likelihood that his views and politics, such as they are, defy left/right categorization and basically consist of, as I said, a potpourri of ultra-weird paranoid notions knocking around a severely warped mind. So what? say some. Where's the harm in using the incident to talk about Tea Party rhetoric, even if this incident probably didn't have anything to do with it? Well, I see two problems with it. (1) It's not true. (2) It's not fair. It's not true in the following sense: it *automatically* fits this incident into a preconceived narrative when in fact it doesn't fit. It misrepresents the complex reality of the situation. That's so even when we're scrupulous, as the Times is, about saying, It may be that this is a freak occurrence unrelated to Tea Party rhetoric, before going on to implicitly make the connection. I'm concerned with honest and accurate public discourse. I'm concerned with objective, open-minded examinations of issues, events, and recent history. I'm concerned with those things, I suppose, for their own sake. We have bad habits. One of those habits is to seize upon some fact or circumstance and twist it into a data point in our predetermined worldview. That bad habit is also dangerous. We should approach the facts and the circumstances in a more objective fashion -- that's a good habit to develop. I see the rush to fit this round peg into a square hole as an example of that bad habit, and that's one reason I'm bothered by it. Two, it's not fair. By making the connections we're making, we are implicitly claiming that, for example, Sarah Palin is partly responsible for these murders -- that she contributed to a murder-friendly climate. The crosshairs map immediately became the subject of a lot of discussion. I don't actually think that the crosshairs map is such an incendiary image. I think it's pretty tame. Maybe it's borderline. In any event, Palin would be right to object to these associations. I don't think we do ourselves any favors by handing her a good argument against media criticism. Like Chait, my inclination is to say, "Lord help me, I'm defending Sarah Palin." I really, really don't like her. I think she's a pathetic, albeit dangerous, joke who should have confined her career aspirations to sportscasting. But she shouldn't be called on the carpet for this. That's the sort of thing *she* does -- always taking offense, always demanding apologies. I'm not comfortable with a media climate that takes an event like this and then instantly points its chubby finger in this way. So that's why I don't like using this incident to talk about Tea Party rhetoric. But, as long as we're talking about it already, my thoughts are these: You say that I've got my underwear in a tangle because I object to *your* speech but not to extreme right-wing speech. I'm saying, you say, that we should be reluctant to condemn extreme right-wing rhetoric even as I find fault with your rhetoric. Cute, but it won't work. I don't actually object to your speech, except insofar as I think it's wrong. I don't say that your arguments are offensive or "peculiarly illegitimate." I say, as I just said, that they're untrue and, because they're untrue, they're unfair, i.e., wrong. This is what I mean when I say that my "speech code" amounts to "correctness," not "political correctness." It's not really a speech code at all. I'm not focused on the style of our rhetoric -- as in, whether it's too angry, too uncivil, too heated, too offensive, and so on. I'm focused more on the substance -- whether it's true and just on the one hand, or cruel horseshit on the other. I think that our national conversation about Tea Party rhetoric risks skipping past the substance to focus on the style, which is another bad habit. The Tea Party is mainly wrong, as I said, because it's wrong, not because it's angry or "incendiary." You're also wrong in suggesting that I have no problem with some extreme right-wing rhetoric. I repeatedly said that I agreed that some speech crosses a line, although I think that I probably draw that line in a slightly different place than you do. I would focus, as Kilgore does in his TNR piece, on one precise target: the view that now is the time for armed revolt against federal tyranny. In that regard, I find Angle's statement to be over the line -- to, as Kilgore puts it, show inadequate respect for the rule of law. This is a narrow category. I don't think anything Palin has said really fits into it, for example. Some T-shirts do. In any event, even if we were to excise such rhetoric from the Tea Party entirely, we would still be left with heated, impassioned political views that, yes, are capable of inspiring violence but that shouldn't be seen as off-limits because of that. They should be seen, rather, as cruel horseshit.

- JakeH

January 12, 2011 at 9:20pm

Dhurtado, the objective language of the Times stories is a technicality. It could have run a story with the equally objective and equally true headline, "Right-Wing Link to Shooting Seen Lacking." It's far too late in the day to pretend that news outlets don't make implicit judgments even in their objective coverage decisions. The fact is that the Times itself is putting the focus on right-wing rhetoric, and then "reporting" that there is such a focus. Kind of bogus. I don't mind this phenomenon -- it's unavoidable. I don't question analysis; I question *this* analysis, which has the effect of implicitly telling readers how to think about this incident, and, I argue, not getting it right. In the first analogy, I made the person an evident non-Muslim concerned with contamination of his precious bodily fluids because I think those facts are analogous to the present situation. Loughner's an evident non-Tea-Party-sort (non-Muslim) -- we can skip the question of formal "membership," because we're talking about a movement that doesn't have formal membership -- who was evidently motivated by a non-Muslim, more opaque, Crazy Town set of reasons. I also said that the forceful denunciations from Muslim personages, while "forceful," stopped short of advocating violence. You agree that, under those circumstances, you would have a problem with the Times analysis story. I think that that's basically this situation. The difference, you suggest, is that we have examples of advocating violence here. Precious few among actual Tea Party personages, and none serious. I agree that Angle's Second Amendment comment is out of bounds, but we're mostly talking about a few T-shirts, a few signs, a few bumper stickers that make a roundabout ominous suggestion. You won't find any Tea Party or Republican leader directly advocating violence. What you'll hear are forceful denunciations that arguably contain an extreme logic that could easily inspire violence, but that's too tenuous. That was the point of my abortion analogy. The view that abortion is murder is an extreme and forceful denunciation. The logic of that opinion could very easily -- *very* easily -- inspire violence. You might even say that this view "impliedly" sanctions violence. After all, if you believed that, you would believe that abortion doctors were committing a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly Holocaust of epic proportions. And yet, I take it, you do not think that it's off-limits to argue that abortion is murder. You would have a problem with an analysis story or a column that blamed people who express that opinion for the murder of an abortion doctor. Similarly, I have a problem with saying that opinions about federal tyranny and so on contain the logic of armed insurrection -- impliedly foment rebellion -- to the extent that they should be seen as out of bounds. I think that the view that abortion is murder is wrong, and I make arguments against it. I think that the view that, in Obama's America, we're suffering under the yoke of federal tyranny is wrong, and I argue against it. With very few exceptions -- the somewhat explicit appeals to armed revolt -- I do not say that such opinions are beyond the pale, but rather are moronic.

- JakeH

January 12, 2011 at 11:38pm

Jake- I think I pretty much stipulated that we could take the NY Times headline as normative for purposes of the discussion. I’m not sure I agree with you that it in fact IS a normative assertion, but that is really not relevant to our discussion, which involves whether it is appropriate to use this occasion to examine Tea Party ideology and rhetoric. If you want to take the NY Times to task for *contributing* to, and not merely reporting, the focus on Tea Party ideology and rhetoric, then you might as well rail against the weather. Fair or unfair, it was completely natural and, indeed, inevitable, that the Loughner shooting would focus attention on Tea Party ideology/rhetoric. People had already been expressing concern that the militaristic rhetoric would cause just such a result, Giffords was on the Tea Party’s hit list, she herself expressed concerns about it, and it was clear that Loughner was targeting Giffords personally. It was inevitable that the event would have drawn attention to the issue of inflammatory rhetoric. As to the matter at hand – whether it is appropriate to use the occasion to encourage more rhetorical restraint -- we are in disagreement on two factual issues. First, I do not agree that there is an equivalency between Loughner's lack of association with the Tea Party and your hypothetical assassin's status as a non-Muslim. To put it a little differently than I did above, a Muslim assassin's motivation in your example would presumably be to defend the Muslim faith, whereas a non-Muslim would have no evident incentive to do that. Here, the motivation need not be to defend the Tea Party or its ideology. A crazy man with an anti-government paranoia could quite plausibly be affected by the anti-government ideology and militaristic rhetoric of the Tea Party, even if he does not otherwise identify with the Tea Party at all. Second, and far more important, is the issue of whether Tea Party leaders have impliedly or expressly advocated violence. You apparently agree that, if so, that would be a material difference between your Muslim hypothetical and the current situation. And you appear to agree that there has been at least some implied advocacy of violence by Tea Party leaders, but believe that such advocacy of violence is minimal and does not have any appreciable probability of inciting violence. Perhaps we will have to agree to disagree about that. But please understand that I am not arguing that any particular words or combinations of words in the abstract are likely to incite violence. I argue that the COMBINATION of a revolutionary ideology and militaristic rhetoric poses a genuine risk of inciting violence. To illustrate with your abortion analogy, it is certainly true that a belief that abortion is murder implies that an abortionist should be criminally punished as a murderer. But the risk that expressing such a belief will, by itself, incite violence against abortionists is relatively minimal because our culture heavily discourages vigilantism. But if we add to the mix expressions by activists, political leaders, and high-profile media personalities that explicitly or implicitly encourage vigilantism, the risk of violence against abortionists is greatly amplified. And I think in that case it would be appropriate to speak out against such rhetoric and try to persuade the speakers that they should be judicious and exercise restraint in their public expressions. I really don’t understand why you would regard such admonishments (themselves protected speech) as somehow the imposition of fascistic speech codes. All of that said, unlike your discussion with Roid, this one is not about causation in the specific instance of the Loughner matter. It is about whether the Loughner matter is an appropriate occasion upon which to reflect on the potential results and the wisdom of mixing a revolutionary ideology with militaristic rhetoric. I take it your objection is twofold: (1) that it is unfair to Palin et al. because it unfairly imputes to them responsibility for the mass murder; and (2), again, that it somehow chills freedom of expression. I don’t think it is unfair because I believe that, just like the indiscriminate shooter in the woods, they have acted irresponsibly and in a way that has the potential of producing the same horrible result. As to your second objection, I really don’t understand it. Certainly, it is no less appropriate to object to someone’s speech as potentially dangerous than it is to object to someone’s speech as reflecting stupidity. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 13, 2011 at 1:33pm

Dhurtado, You skip over the part of my argument in which I objected that it was "untrue" -- an example of the bad habit of twisting a circumstance into a data point in a preconceived worldview. The distinction I'm making is between style and substance. We've been told to "tone it down." But tone is not the problem. The Tea Party isn't wrong because it's angry. I get angry all the time, and sometimes anger is called for. The Tea Party is wrong because it's actually wrong. The problem with your analogy is that the shooter's actions were unambiugously wrong. Here, you have not one shooter doing something unambiguously wrong, but a whole movement doing a mix of things, some of which are borderline or just over the line, that is being tarred with the following headline: "TEA PARTY = MURDEROUS SHOOTING RAMPAGE? DISCUSS." So, yeah, I think that's unfair. I wouldn't want my views to be painted with that sort of broad brush. Palin, like I said, is a joke. Her speech was terrible. She's politcally ridiculous -- slap-your-forehead bad. But, she's right that she shouldn't have been called on the carpet for this, and I agree with what some are now saying, which is that we shouldn't be too quick to judge in the way that we did. Why? Once again, because it's untrue, and unfair. Also, I appreciate the point made in the most recent blog post that we hurt our cause as a practical matter when we do that. That post pointed to several incidents of genuine right-wing inspired violence. By trying to say that this is one of them, we lose credibility. We look excessively political, partison, all too eager to pounce on a tragedy to make a dubious point, and, frankly, I think that well describes some of the reaction.

- JakeH

January 13, 2011 at 6:48pm

With all respect, Jake, your last post deviates from the subject of our discussion. I have essentially stipulated that there is no causal connection between Tea Party ideology/rhetoric and Loughner's actions (though there is *some* evidence of a connection and it is presumptuous to claim at this point that there absolutely is no causal relationship). The question we have been discussing, to be irritatingly repetitive, is whether this nevertheless is an appropriate occasion to critique Tea Party ideology/rhetoric. So when you say I skipped the part of your argument that it is "untrue," I'm not sure what you are talking about. If you mean the assertion of a causal connection between Tea Party ideology/rhetoric and Loughner's attack is untrue, that is simply not what we were discussing. My argument stipulates, arguendo, that the assertion of a causal connection is "untrue." You will note that none of my posts say anything about "tone" or "anger." While angry, intransigent rhetoric can indeed impede communication and interfere with the function of government, that is not what I am talking about. One can articulate the belief that we are under a tyrannical regime that should be overthrown, and that we could justifiably resort to "Second Amendment remedies," in complete coolness (as Angle in fact did), and it would still be highly incendiary, particularly where such views are endorsed by putatively responsible political and media figures. So I agree; the Tea Party isn't wrong because it is angry. It is wrong because it preaches that the current government is illegitimate and that it should be overthrown, by violence if necessary. Regarding my analogy, we have a fundamental disagreement. I believe that coupling revolutionary ideology with militaristic rhetoric is unambiguously wrong, particularly where the speakers support their ideology and rhetoric by cynically and knowingly distorting the truth. That conduct is just as likely, if not more likely, to cause violence as the indiscriminate shooters’ actions are to hit a human with a bullet. Now, I agree that it is unfair to accuse Palin of having caused the murder, in the sense that there is no proof that she did. But I don't feel that it is unfair in the sense that she is being undeservedly abused. I say that because her conduct and expressions create a risk of something similar occurring, and she is completely unapologetic about it. And, of course, my point has never been that this is in fact an instance of genuine right-wing inspired violence. But I think you are wrong to criticize those who initially assumed that it was. Again, Giffords was targeted by Palin using a firearms metaphor. Her opponent in the recent election did something very similar. Her offices had been recently damaged in an apparently politically motivated attack. And, voila, she is shot in the head by someone who was specifically targeting her. You would have to be completely disassociated from current events to not suspect, at that point, that it was a Tea Party inspired murder. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 13, 2011 at 11:49pm

Dhurtado, yes, well, I doubted this connection at the outset -- on day one -- and I think that we were all too hasty in making it. I was right, and we end up looking foolish. Yes, Palin is undeservedly abused -- for *this*, I hasten to say, and not for everything else. She didn't create any potential climate or whatever that was out of bounds. She says whatever damn fool thing is on her mind. She's utterly clueless. She's not been inciting violence. You want to confine the topic of our exchange to whether it was appropriate to focus on Tea Pary rhetoric in the wake of this incident. I think that that focus was hasty, political, distasteful, inaccurate, unfair, petty, stupid, and not at all helpful to any cause we care about. I think that was all pretty obvious very early on, as in the day of and morning after, and I think we look like asses for even bringing it up.

- JakeH

January 14, 2011 at 2:18am

Well, Jake, as you have made farily clear in this thread, you do not actually regard revolutionary ideology/militaristic rhetoric as a problem, even where it is cynically being employed. So it is perhaps inevitable that your take on this issue would be different than that of those who do regard it as a problem. Whether this is an appropriate occasion to examine the potential danger of revolutionary ideology/rhetoric is precisely what you and I have been discussing. Our discussion took as given that there was in fact no causal connection between such ideology and Loughner's actions. I think I made some fairly thoughtful arguments in that regard, whether or not you agree with them. For you to then revert back to arguing a point I have conceded for the purposes of the discussion is simply a dodge. Your last paragraph is silly. As a lawyer, I, too, recoil at the public's propensity for convicting people before all of the evidence is in. And so I did not conclude that there was a connection between the Tea Party and Loughner's actions. But by the same token, we do have concepts such as probable cause and reasonable suspicion. Based on the facts that were initially known, it was not unreasonable to *suspect* that there was a connection, much less does that initial suspicion deserve all of the epithets you have hurled. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 14, 2011 at 8:01am

Okay Dhurtado, my last paragraph was intemperate, but I think it's about right. I didn't think the lack of facts justified the sort of instant folding of this incident into the Tea Party rhetoric theme. I didn't think we had the journalistic equivalent of probable cause here to dress the story up so thoroughly in those terms. Anyway, I'm about out of gas on this one. Thanks for your thoughts.

- JakeH

January 14, 2011 at 3:32pm