There are many on the left who are using the Tucson shooting as an opening to debate civility in political discourse. The only problem is that there is no political connection to the shooting. Jared Loughner is obviously mentally ill, he didn’t' commit mass murder with any particular political ideology in mind. That being said there are other problems with this this ridiculous civility debate.

There have been many polls since the November elections. These polls seem to show that there is growing discontent amongst Americans when it comes to partisan politics. I don't buy it. If Americans were simple disgusted with partisan politics there wouldn't have been landslide Republican victories. It's obvious by the election results that there was growing discontent for the way things are conducted in Washington. This opposition had little if nothing to do with political affiliation, but more to do with accountability. Washington ignored the will of the people multiple times. Some were even rude and arrogant about it.

I look at it like this. I'm going to use an auto repair shop as an analogy here. If you took your car in for repair and found out that two of the mechanics working on your car didn't get along too well, would you really care? If you take your car to the shop you want to get it fixed right? Does it really worry you that two of the employees don't get along? Of course not. You might be worried that you are going to get swindled, but that has nothing to do with shop squabbles. As a matter fact you might never know that there are any problems between employees at all.

I look at politics the same way. Most people I have spoken with are not worried about Democrats and Republicans getting along. As a matter of fact most people don't even know what's going on in Washington. Most people would assume that the people who are sent to Washington have American's best interest in mind, but that's not always the case. When it becomes evident that politicians are making decisions based on something other than their constituent's best interest; you have elections like the one in November.

All the noise coming from the news media is just that, noise. There never really was any debate about political discourse amongst the American people. They just went out on election day and voted for those who seemed the most likely to represent their beliefs.

Those on the left can't seem to come to grips with this, so they have to fabricate some irrelevant debate in an obvious attempt to silence their opposition. Have you heard any mention of “Progressive Talk Radio” or any progressive / liberal media outlet in the "debate"?

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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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This series of events couldn't get any stranger. As for the cause, nobody really knows.

Check out his New York Times article.

Around 11 that night, thousands of red-winged blackbirds began falling out of the sky over this small city about 35 miles northeast of Little Rock. They landed on roofs, roads, front lawns and backyards, turning the ground nearly black and terrifying anyone who happened to be outside.

"One of them almost hit my best friend in the head," said Christy Stephens, who was standing outside among the smoking crowd at a party. "We went inside after that."

The cause is still being determined, but preliminary lab results from the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission revealed "acute physical trauma" in samples of the dead birds. There were no indications of disease, though tests were still being done for the presence of toxic chemicals.

There are many theories as to what happened to the birds. High altitude hail, tornadoes, cold air. Perhaps any of the these things could have caused the birds to die.

The question I have is why would they be flying at night? If you pay attention; you rarely ever see birds (other than owls) flying at night. This is because most have poor eyesight in low light conditions. That's what makes it so strange to me. Not that they could have been bombarded by nature, but the fact that they were all flying at night high enough to "splat" when they hit the ground.

Now there are reports that the same species of bird are falling in Louisiana.

LABARRE — Hundreds of dead and dying birds littered a quarter-mile stretch of highway in Pointe Coupee Parish on Monday as motorists drove over and around them.

State biologists are trying to determine what led to the deaths of the estimated 500 red-winged blackbirds and starlings on La. 1 just down the road from Pointe Coupee Central High School.

The discovery of the dead birds — some of which were lying face down, clumped in groups, while others were face up with their wings outstretched and rigid legs pointing upward — comes just three days after more than 3,000 blackbirds rained down from the sky in Beebe, Ark.

All I have to say is that thousands of birds dying at relatively the same time is definitely strange.

You can't convince me that you wouldn't be a little worried if you saw a scene like the one above in your neighborhood.

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This is a wake-up call to anyone who doesn't think that government is going awry.

"No refusal" DUI checkpoints could be coming to Tampa

...the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration expects this to be one of the deadliest weeks of the year on the roads.

But now a new weapon is being used in the fight against drunk driving.

It's a change that could make you more likely to be convicted.

"I think it's a great deterrent for people," said Linda Unfried, from Mother's Against Drunk Driving in Hillsborough County.

Florida is among several states now holding what are called "no refusal" checkpoints.

It means if you refuse a breath test during a traffic stop, a judge is on site, and issues a warrant that allows police to perform a mandatory blood test.

It's already being done in several counties, and now Unfried is working to bring it to the Tampa Bay area.

Wow! That means that if a judge is on-site, you have no rights? At the bottom of a Florida driver license it says, "Operation of a motor vehicle constitutes consent to any sobriety test required by law". I seem to remember something about the 5th Amendment, it contained the phrase, "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself". Unfried, a spokes person for MADD, goes on to say that the check points will be well advertised; as if that makes it OK.

We're talking about blood tests here. This means the the government will stick a needle in your arm and take your blood without your consent. This can be ordered right at the check point where there is no indication that any law was broken, no probable cause. Of course you can resist and be held in contempt of court; you will probably also be charged with resisting an officer, who knows.

In these cases a judge is basically revoking your freedom, without any proof of wrongdoing (without any due process). I'm not sure how long this practice will remain in effect before law suits stop it.

Compare this "no refusal" practice to the Arizona immigration law. All of the civil rights activists were up in arms about the Arizona law (which first required offenders to break the at lease some law before being questioned). What if the government set up illegal immigrant check points? What would the response be to that?

With so many looking to ring in the New Year with a glass of champagne, think twice about what roads you take. Which brings me to another point. If you're drunk just take a detour.

They are doing these no refusal checkpoints in Texas as well. Listen to this woman's speech to the legislature in Austin. She is brilliant!

Precedence is a very dangerous thing. The government could claim that ANYTHING they do is for the safety of others. Does that mean that there is no limit to what government can do? Think about that for a minute.

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This is what you get when you allow bureaucrats to draft a budget.

VISTA (AP) — To trim $9 million from their budget, Vista officials say they will shut off half of the city’s residential street lights in March unless property owners agree to pay higher lighting fees.

Fees could cost residents of the north San Diego County city between $4 and $20 a year.

Lesson learned. Never live anywhere with "lighting fees".

If politicians are resorting to threats and extortion in an attempt to validate higher taxes; those politicians need to go. End of story.

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