Analysis of The Response to Gabrielle Giffords' Shooting

Before I get into why I think those on the left are quick to blame the right for acts of violence; I have to get into why I think that those on the left come to these conclusions.

I obviously can't speak for everyone in any particular group, I can only point out my observations.

There are a few key differences between how those on the left think and those on the right think. Generally those on the left express a belief that individuals are a product of their environment completely. By completely I mean that it's as if there are no “individuals”. It seems that whenever someone commits a negative act, it is because they were influenced to do so. Those on the left tend to believe that man, humans in general, are inherently good. This thinking leaves people only to blame instances and circumstances rather than the individual who knowingly committed the act. The logical conclusion to this line of thinking is that nobody is ever guilty as an individual. There are never ending accomplices. This line of thinking is contrary to all of human history.

Most on the right tend to think that individuals make their own decisions; while those decisions are in large part effected by an individual's upbringing, they are still their decisions. When someone commits a negative act, those on the right tend to blame the individual. Christianity teaches that man is flawed. Man is not inherently good. It is for this reason that most right thinking people are aware that people are capable of committing acts of evil without outside influences. In the end people all make conscious decisions to do whatever it is they do.

I remember when I was a kid I crossed the street when I was told not to do so. My father told me that I shouldn't let other people influence me to do such things. The thing was, nobody had influenced me, nobody tricked me into crossing the street. I crossed the street because I wanted to. What my father said made me feel as if he didn't think I was capable of making my own decisions, good or bad. I told my father that I crossed the street because I wanted to. Of course I got in trouble, but it was worth it to me. I sometimes wonder how left thinking people would have responded to such an incident. Would they just sit back and blame some outside force?

On January 8, 2011 in Tucson, Arizona, a 22 year-old man named Jared Lee Loughner attacked several people outside a Safeway store. He shot 19 people including Gabrielle Giffords. He killed 6 and wounded 13.

Jared Loughner left messages on MySpace alluding to his pending death, and even produced Youtube videos explaining his way of thinking. It is clear after watching just one of the videos that Jared Loughner is insane. Jared Loughner had no political motivation. He's just crazy. And as history has proven; people can go crazy without outside influences.

This article in The Washington Examiner sheds light on exactly what I was talking about.

In the hours after the attack, little was known about Loughner beyond some bizarre and largely incomprehensible YouTube postings that, if anything, suggested he was mentally ill. Yet the network that had shown such caution in discussing the Ft. Hood shootings openly discussed the possibility that Loughner was inspired to violence by…Sarah Palin. Although there is no evidence that Loughner was in any way influenced by Palin, CNN was filled with speculation about the former Alaska governor.

After reporting that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik had condemned what Dupnik called "the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government," CNN's Wolf Blitzer turned to congressional reporter Jessica Yellin for analysis.

"It certainly is," Blitzer agreed. "But the question is, is there any evidence that the suspected shooter in this particular case was a Sarah Palin fan, read Sarah Palin's website, was a member on Facebook, watched her tweets, or anything like that?"

"None at all," Yellin responded. "And there is no evidence that this was even inspired by rage over health care, broadly. So there is no overt connection between Sarah Palin, health care, and the [shootings]."

Indeed, there is no "overt" or any other sort of connection between Loughner and Palin. If such evidence came to light, it would certainly be news. But without that evidence, and after a brief caveat, the CNN group went back to discussing the theory that Loughner acted out of rage inspired by Palin and other Republicans. Conclusions were jumped to all around.

It would seem as if Wolf Blitzer is trying to link Jared Loughner with Sarah Palin. There is nothing to suggest that anything Jared Loughner did was politically motivated. Wolf Blitzer must be delusional.

The idea here is that if they can put the name "Sarah Palin" together with "Jared Loughner" enough, have it said in the same sentence enough, people will start to relate the two. I don't really think that Wolf Blitzer believes that Sarah Palin was an influence on Loughner. Wolf Blitzer must think that his audience will make a connection between Loughner and Palin; why else would he say such baseless things on cable news? Blitzer must believe that other left thinking people will blame someone other than the actual shooter. In my experience they will.

The surreal allegations of Conservative involvement in Jared Loughner's attack continue even today! Check out this ABC News article.

The Arizona sheriff investigating the Tucson shooting that left U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded had harsh words today for those engaging in political rhetoric, calling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh "irresponsible" for continuing the vitriol.

"The kind of rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment he is irresponsible, uses partial information, sometimes wrong information," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said today. "[Limbaugh] attacks people, angers them against government, angers them against elected officials and that kind of behavior in my opinion is not without consequences."

Limbaugh today railed against the media and Dupnik for trying to draw a link between the heated political climate and the shooting rampage, calling the sheriff a "fool." But Dupnik stood by his assertions.

"The vitriol affects the [unstable] personality that we are talking about," he said. "You can say, 'Oh no, it doesn't,' but my opinion is that it does."

Investigators have yet to determine what motivated 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, described by some as appearing to be mentally unstable, to allegedly open fire on the crowd outside the Tucson Safeway. However, so far there is no evidence that he has any ties to any political group.

In contrast I thought I would post a screen shot of this Daily Kos post by someone who claims to have worked on the Gabrielle Giffords campaign. This post has since been scrubbed from the Daily Kos website.

Just another example of the "well-rounded" individuals writing for the Daily Kos.

In the wake of the shooting BoyBlue issued this apology, which is just about as bizarre the first post.

With people like "BoyBlue" posting articles like the one above; you can see that it is impossible to stop or predict something like the Arizona shooting.

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