Jared Lee Loughner, identified today as the shooter responsible for the mass shooting this morning in Tucson which took the life of federal court judge and Bush appointee John Roll and critically injured Democrat U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, lists The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf among his favorite books, calls himself a terrorist, and indicates he has no religious views.
Jared Lee Loughner, identified today as the shooter responsible for the mass shooting this morning in Tucson which took the life of federal court judge and Bush appointee John Roll and critically injured Democrat U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, lists The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf among his favorite books, calls himself a terrorist, and indicates he has no religious views.
cross-posted from The Freedomist The story of the shooting of the conservative Blue Dog democrat Gabrielle Giffords is a national tragedy that crosses political, religious, and cultural lines. It resonates with all of America that seeks to live in a free nation where individuals can engage in political discourse without fear of violent reprisals. Irregardless of the motivation behind this tragic shooting, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is an American sister, and the shooter, no matter his motivation, is an enemy of freedom and the American Constitution. The efforts by the left to immediately use this American tragedy to demonize anyone who dares oppose Obamacare and the Obama agenda are just as incendiary and terroristic in nature as the shooter's act was. These individuals who wish to use an American tragedy, one that is clearly an assault on All our freedoms, to attempt to bury political opponents through political assassinations should be viewed in the same way that The Freedomist views the acts of this shooter. Here are some of the ways the left is covering this story, starting with the straight coverage first: Read here for updated information and more on the tactics by the left to turn this shooting into a demonization of anyone who opposes obamacare or the progressive agenda. More information on the shooter including his YouTube video Update: The shooter calls himself a terrorist in his YouTube video and indicates he has no religious beliefs. While Giffords has been given optimistic chances of survival, federal court judge and Bush appointee John Roll has died of a gunshot wound. A photo of the shooter has been posted here. Screen shots from one of the shooter's YouTube videos. 
Gabrielle was a moderate, and on her website it shows she was pro Obamacare.
Like moths drawn to the light all the cable news was focused on Tucson yesterday. Starting a few hours after the shooting it seemed that there was nothing going on in the world, except for the 8 shots, or was it 20, or 18. Then there were 6 dead, 2 dead, any number you want. The live pictures were mixed with archives to the distortion of any coherent message. Fox didn’t seem to have anything new or accurate, so I flipped to CNN and MSNBC. I wondered how long it would take for the moths to begin the blaming someone right of center. Not long! Sarah Palin’s name was mentioned very early and graphics of her targeted election map were displayed. By 7 pm (ET) Al Sharpton was on TV with his “unbiased” opinion and the announcement was made that Keith Olbermann would be on a 8pm. As I was watching the real “True Grit” I switched to MSNBC during commercials to see what the Keithster had to say. Sure enough, even if he did look good and was more contrite than usual, he took this time to attack, not the shooter, but the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
It reminds me of the time I was outside on one particularly pleasant evening and I happened to notice the moths flying around the yard light. As they circled around the light they went from the dark, where they were almost invisible, to the bright light of the flood lamps. As they crossed this lighted area I noticed, not only the variation caused by the flapping of wings, but the strobe effect of the 60 cycle electricity. I was very fascinating to see this illusion through the flying moths that I could not see from looking at the light itself. I couldn’t see the 60 cycle flicker on Olbermann’s face, but I’m sure it was there.
It is hardly surprising that many people, left and right, will try to make political hay of this act of madness and terrorism. The fact that the shooter chose a Democrat whose record is moderate on some issues, liberal on a few, will be made, by leftists, to show that the shooter was, after all, attacking someone regarded by conservatives as being on the left. Such leftists will ask: why aren’t there attempts to kill conservative Republicans? This equal opportunity lunacy will be matched by conservatives, who can’t stop repeating–as the headline for Mr. Collier’s post exemplifies–that the shooter was fond of “The Communist Manifesto.” Needless to say, the headline could have included “Mein Kampf” but this is a conservative site, and if you’re on the right you lead with Marx.
The real lesson, if one must draw a lesson, from this murder has nothing to do with any sort of ideology. It is rather that the world is a dangerous place and there are lots of insane people out there. Life is short and filled with risk. No one is magically insulated from such risk. Politicians are especially visible and everything they do or stand for is the object of somebody’s potentially lethal madness.
It is sad to say the least. A baby is dead, a Federal Judge dead, and others we do not know yet. The screeching howls wanting to blame each other is deafening. Mein Kampf and the Communist manifesto and a gun in the hands of a lunatic and no one asked where the gun came from, or have they? As a conservative I take umbrage to the comparison of Hitler’s manifesto and conservative ideology. One only has to read a little of Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto to see that both are quite utopian and socialist in tone.
Needless to say, the headline could have included “Mein Kampf”
It might as well have – Mein Kampf has as much to do with “right wing” or “conservative” ideology as the Communist Manifesto, “liberal” delusions to the contrary notwithstanding.
You are correct to say that the motivation here is not ideological, but the lesson, I think, actually is ideological. Although the instinctive reaction of the left and the mouse in its pocket that is the media has been to associate this clearly irrational fellow with the Tea Parties, blame Sarah Palin, blame the Republicans, blame Arizona’s immigration law, and cry for more gun control (Pima County sheriff managed to get the entire line of rhetoric covered in a single media appearance), the fact is that reading this guy’s writings it is very clear that he has no coherent or discernible ideology at all – left, right, center, or sideways. He is quite obviously mentally ill, and his illogical ramblings are not the product of anything more or less than that. It’s disheartening that our public discourse is so ideologically homogeneous among voices praying to a god they think Sarah Palin is a buffoon for believing in that this fellow was somehow motivated by someone – anyone! – even an inch to the right of Che Guevara, that such a blindingly obvious fact, or set of facts, would need to be presented as a retort or defense of conservative ideology in the first place.
reply to Mr. Mulligan,
You’re determined to score ideological points from this event, so I suppose there’s little more to say. Very cleverly, you manage to cover both basis–the shooter is a whack job and also inspired by the Left. Of course you depend on the new conservative orthodoxy that removes Hitler from the Right, a piece of historical revisionism that Jonah Goldberg made possible. And if enough conservatives keep repeating this particular riff, it will become true because you all say it is. I hope your job at the conservative Ministry of Truth has good benefits.
Gestell
With all due respect, you may be correct on some questions, but Hannah Arendt wrote about the similarities and differences between Hitler and Stalin in ~1948, well before Jonah Goldberg. In “the Roots of Totalitarianism” she sees more similarities. In addition, since socialists have abducted the word “Liberal”, which was used to describe people like F. A. Hayek in the 40’s, we need guys like Goldberg to explain things.
Reply to Ivan Ivanovich,
The idea that there were similarities between the old Soviet communist regime and the Fascist/Nazi regimes is hardly new. Many European intellectuals started talking about a new thing they called ‘totalitarianism’ back in the late 1920s. The word itself came from the fact that the Italian Fascists called what they had the ‘total’ state. In some political circles, the word caught on, and people started applying it to the Soviet Union as well. When I first studied political science, many textbook writers took for granted that the 20th century had invented the ‘totalitarian state,’ and that the Soviet Communist regimes, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Salazar’s Portugal, Franco’s Spain, and Peron’s Argentina were all examples. Questions began to emerge among comparativists and historians about the usefulness of the label, given that lots of specific differences among these systems could be identified. One problem is that societies can be found that developed well before the 20th century that were ‘totalitarian,’ such as the Inca civilization.
To fast forward to Goldberg: his project isn’t quite the same as that of the theorists of totalitarianism. What he tries to do–and many willing conservatives now buy into it–is to perform some intellectual gymnastics that allow him to do the following: (1) to equate liberalism and progressivism with a sort of generic Fascism–note that he will ignore any detail of Fascism that doesn’t fit, and he manages to admit that liberals and progressivives don’t really run totalitarian states–but allows that they may wind up doing this anyway if we’re not careful–thus, a good exercise in having one’s cake, etc. then (2) he moves Fascism away from the ideological Right, playing fast and loose with a century or more of political and historical analysis, plus what just about any politically literate European recognizes–that there was such a thing as the totalitarian Right. Thus, Fascism, liberalism, and progressivism are all over there on the side of the bad guys, leaving only conservatives on the side of the good guys. Game, set, and match. Of course, Goldberg leaves himself open–not that he grasps this–for such absurdities as the following: if FDR’s liberalism is really Fascism, and FDR’s government ran the US, then WWII was really a kind of intramural war between the ‘liberal fascists’(the US and the UK) and the ‘fascist fascists’ (Italy and Germany). I wrote him on this, suggesting that WWII be renamed the Great IntraFascist War of 1939-45. He did not deign to reply.
Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.
If anyone can tell anything specific about Loaghner’s motivation for the shooting from this book list they should be working for the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit or maybe for one of the two major political party’s spin machines.
Very cleverly, you manage to cover both basis–the shooter is a whack job and also inspired by the Left.
Not one syllable of my previous comment suggested, implied or stated the shooter was “inspired by the Left” in any way, shape or form. Go back and actually read it this time. Better yet, have someone proficient in English read it and explain it to you. There isn’t even any potential logical contortion to which you could avail yourself to suggest that I said anything of the kind.
You’re determined to score ideological points from this event
No. Quite the opposite. I was expressing my disgust at the immediacy with which the left began building a goal post for exactly that purpose. Case in point. Although to be fair, arguably the first man on the bandwagon was Sheriff Clarence Dupnik who blamed his state’s immigration law and “prejudice and bigotry” for this young man’s actions within hours of shooting.
Of course you depend on the new conservative orthodoxy that removes Hitler from the Right
No political orthodoxy was or is necessary to remove Hitler from the right. The liberal concept that anyone who puts his hand over his heart during the national anthem is a “nationalist” notwithstanding, there isn’t anything about American conservative ideology in common with German National Socialism – not the German part, not the nationalist part, and not the socialist part. If, as you have stated and implied in our previous discussions at this website, you believe that the further “right” on the political spectrum you go the closer you get to anarchy (libertarianism being an undifferentiated substitution for anarchy in your view), it’s hard to make the case that a system which advocates fierce allegiance to the state, collectivization of the means of production, and territorial expansion is “right wing”, isn’t it?
Oh, and what a lovely red herring you have there! For a second there I thought we were discussing the left’s disgusting attempts to associate a clearly delusional nut case with its political opposition, when all of a sudden a discussion about conservatism’s relation to fascism appears. Ironically enough, your diversion is kind of making my point for me.
In other news, it has recently come to light that John Hinckley Jr. was a radical right wing ideologue pushed over the edge by the high school politicking of a then-17-year-old Sarah Palin.
Similarly, new information suggests that both Squeaky Fromme and Sara Jane Moore may have been whipped into a frenzy of violence by Rush Limbaugh during his time as an AM top-40 DJ in Pittsburgh.
My God, will the right wing vitriol never end!!!!!
Let us please not devolve into a reflection of the cable news shows. This game of “It’s your fault”, “No it’s not, it’s your fault” simply does not apply. The shooter was a nut, a drug taker, a destructive and even self-destructive person. No amount of political rhetoric, blaming, or “Solutions” will bring back the dead or heal the injured. These things have happened before, to both sides of the political spectrum, and they will happen again. Talk of “Let’s make sure this never happens again” makes the speaker seem either ignorant or dishonest.
“My God, will the right wing vitriol never end!!!!!”
Yes, it will. I will start by vowing not to write about it here again.
Seems the fringe right wing website DailyKos targeted Giffords during the 2008 election, putting a “bullseye” on her district. One wonders just how far up the fascist right-wing conservative movement this assassination attempt goes!
reply to Patrick Mulligan,
I do say that libertarianism tends toward anarchism, but I don’t claim that libertarianism is on the Right. If it were, libertarians would be conservatives of some sort, which they are not. Libertarians and conservatives can, and have, made political alliances for a long time, and they can agree on a few salient points, but if pigs had wings they’d be pigeons. The Right is where conservatives are, and have been, for several centuries now. If you want to represent the relationships visually, draw a horizontal line for the spectrum Left—–Right. Then draw a vertical line through it to generate a set of coordinates. At one end you could put something like ‘total state’ (the original sense of ‘totalitarianism’) and at the other put ‘anarchism’. Then add the various ideological combinations to the coordinate space that results.
If you want to represent the relationships visually, draw a horizontal line for the spectrum Left—–Right. Then draw a vertical line through it to generate a set of coordinates.
If libertarians are not on the right of the spectrum, they certainly aren’t on the left, and a Y-axis from “anarchy” to “totalitarianism” isn’t really that instructive when paired with an X-axis from “left” to “right” because those terms themselves are relative and therefore meaningless without context. Perhaps what we need is a new metaphor.
It’s a rather trivial point anyway. Nothing about American conservatism has anything to do with fascism in a generic sense or Nazism in particular anymore than libertarianism does, so to associate Mein Kampf with American conservatism is as silly as associating some nutcase whose behavior for the past 3 years since he first began stalking his local congresswoman has been a primal scream for mental health help with Sarah Palin. It wouldn’t really matter if this guy had the Bible and “A Letter from Birmingham Jail” on his “favorite readings” list. He’s very clearly deeply mentally ill and his rantings are so incoherent and irrational that they defy rational political classification. Like I said before, the only thing that makes this information even the least bit relevant is that it defies the narrative that was instantaneously whipped up in liberal circles that this deranged young man was a right wing lunatic driven to violence by conservative political figures. That a defense against those accusations had to even be constructed before the bodies of the dead were cold is a rather telling reflection of our political discourse. It is indeed toxic and vitriolic, but not exactly in the way that the liberal narrative suggests.
[...] 0 Join us tonight on our Phoenix radio show, the Alexander & Goldman Show tonight as we discuss the shooting of Arizona’s Democrat Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords earlier today. We’ll be giving live updates and analysis of this tragic event here in Arizona. The shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, lists The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf among his favorite boo… [...]
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