President Reagan said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.” Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.
–Sarah Palin’s Facebook
And a great comment here:
The problem is not the cultural triggers. The problem is the mental illness. Like nearly every other culture on Earth, our culture expresses plentiful imagery and words concerning metaphors of weaponry, hunting, conflict, and war, and 99% of this does not come from politics. It comes from everyone’s daily life.
The despicable thing here was seizing upon a tiny insignificant corner of this vast and widespread cultural reality, based on a cyncial desire to create an association between a horrific event and designated political opponents. This was done almost instantly, from many directions, in advance of any facts whatsoever. This false claim was to some extent premeditated. The Democrats and the media were locked and loaded, by the admission of some of their own just waiting for something like this. They seek to undo the collapse of their statist program by creating a right-wing bogeyman. It won’t work. I predict this absurd attempt at slander will actually hasten the collapse. Too many people see the falsehood and cynicism. Too many people realize that when this desperate and defeated political movement talks about its enemies, it is actually talking about THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES.Wm T Sherman
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
“When two sides grow too far apart the mode of communication between them changes from conversation to negotiation. While conversation is a form of communication between friends, negotiation is a communications mode between adversaries. Indeed negotiations are predicated on conscious separateness. You don’t negotiate with yourself. This means that the other side can be made to modify his behavior (but not necessarily his views) purely on the basis of rewards and punishment.”
This quoted from: http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/01/12/copts-and-robbers/#more-12040
I edited the quote from Richard Fernandez, at Belmont Club on http://pajamasmedia.com/ to produce a more generally applicable analysis.
Very, very good.
Two great articles today…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791904576075660624213434.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011106068.html
of course bat shit crazy people should be held responsible for what they do, that just makes sense !!
And a great comment here:
The problem is not the cultural triggers. The problem is the mental illness. Like nearly every other culture on Earth, our culture expresses plentiful imagery and words concerning metaphors of weaponry, hunting, conflict, and war, and 99% of this does not come from politics. It comes from everyone’s daily life.
Fantastic quote.
I took a class in college called ”Eros & Politics.”
It was all about the various sexual relationships that are perfectly mirrored in every political relationship.
Everything from rape to marriage has an equivalency in the relationship between the governed and those who govern.
So, that hunting, conflict, weaponry and war also have equivalencies in political relationships should be no surprise to anyone.
Maybe our Dem friends think no one under 40 has read 1984.
Newspeak was introduced to us all in that novel.
But even those who haven’t read the book can learn about the ultimate goal of the rulers to constrain the thoughts of the governed via limitations on approved speech by looking Newspeak over on line!
The original Newspeak Dictionary is here.
Modern Newspeak is an on-going set of pages, here.
Some examples:
Words whose apparent meaning is opposite from their actual meaning.
Affirmative Action
Implied : Action which is correct (“Affirmative” means correct, and “Action” is normally good as well)
Actual : Preferential treatment for a particular minority group. (See : Apartheid, Racism)
Progressive
Implied – One who wishes to move his country forward.
Actual – One who wishes to move his country toward a state-socialism.
Words which have been altered
Diversity:
Old – Possessing a wide range of qualities.
New – A society which accepts all types of people, except for conservatives, Christians, boy scouts, capitalists, hunters, whites, etc.
Melting Pot :
Old – America is a land of immigrants. The culture of America has been produced by a mix of many diverse cultures.
New – The Melting pot is has been turned off, so it can remain chunky (see : Multiculturalism). To suggest that Immigrants should melt into American society is racist.
I remember when President Reagan was asked the usual question from the media: “Do you have any regrets?” His answer was, “Well,,,,,,that I was ever a democrat.” Do you suppose John Ryan, B-Rob, and other very far left commenters will say such a thing?
IF Obama invokes the need to commit to community service as expiation for our collective guilt as a result of this incident you will know he missed the point of what Ronald Reagan is quoted as saying in the original post.
President Reagan said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”
Wait for just the opposite to be pushed by Obama today in front of all those victim’s families.
He just does not get it.
With 2.3 million Americans currently behind bars–over 1 out of every 100 adults in the nation–I think we might make a pretty good case that society does hold lawbreakers responsible for their actions. We have the highest total number of people in prison–and the highest percentage of the total population–of any nation in the world. China comes in behind us at a very distant second place.
@ Smorgasbord, #6:
I voted for Ronald Reagan in two presidential elections and have subsequently come to regret it. Does that count?
@Greg: #8
Does that mean you regret:
(1) Large tax cuts.
(2) A strong military.
(3) Standing up to the Russians so they spent themselves into bankruptcy and went broke.
(4) More jobs because government got out of the way.
(5) Lower unemployment because government got out of the way.
He accomplished all of this even though a lot of the members of his own party disagreed with a lot of what he did.
Folks, I think that Greg regrets everything. He likes to call himself a liberal or middle of the roader, but he is just a joiner. He desperately wants to belong to some thing. When he makes the ignorant comments at FA, we know he does not belong to the conservative or any thinking organization, so he is relegated to the left where thinking is not a personal value. God help him if he ever had to actually use a scientific process to determine truth.
Another good piece:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/256765/hypocrisy-unending-jay-nordlinger
@Smorgasbord #6:
Obama said to use words that heal, not wound. Think they heard that part of the speech and took it to heart?
@Wordsmith: #11
Obama said to use words that heal, not wound. Think they heard that part of the speech and took it to heart?
No
Do you think Obama will take his own advice? Let’s wait and see.
Oabama’s tone deafness seems unending.
Last night he did call for us to propitiate for sins we had not committed.
But he went a lot further and I almost missed it.
He undercut the federal murder case for the killing of Judge Roll.
Keep this in mind:
FBI agent Tony Taylor argues that Roll was at the event to talk to Giffords about ongoing problems related to a surge in the federal judicial caseload in Arizona–a problem which the judge has attributed to a boost in the number of federal agents sent to the area to address immigration and border-related crime.
Under federal law, the murder or attempted murder of a U.S. official, such as a judge, is only considered a federal crime if committed “while such officer or employee is engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties.” In other words, if Roll simply stopped by the event to greet Giffords, who he’s said to have been friendly with, or due to idle curiosity about what was happening there, his killing probably wouldn’t be a federal offense.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0111/Judges_final_actions_key_to_federal_charge_for_his_murder.html
Now read what Obama said about why Judge Roll was there…..
OBAMA:
Obama backs up his buddy, Sheriff Dupnik, who claimed this was just a social call before having a whit of information!
Nan;
Wake up Nan, you who, where are you? Do you think Oblanco has any interest in the “crime”? Do you think he cares even one iota about the Congresswoman or the federal judge? Wake up time . . . the man cares NOTHING about them, they are mere collateral damage, they are a crisis . . . he is reading a prepared speech again, nothing in the words were from him, period. He is not even a coach of a team . . . he is at best a bookie or cheap seller of fake lottery tickets . . . a fraud. It is clear and simple, there is a bet that the entire event can be “spun” to his advantage and there is absolutely no remorse in his soul for getting the spin to work to his advantage. Every news media outlet, pundit, Washingtonite and New York melodramtis is working the “lines”. The crime its self far down the priority of work to be done by the spin druids, shamans and necromancers of the extreme left. This entire situation must be worked to fit the continued monsterization of the collective. In the voodoo world Ozone is the pin sticker in the icon of democracy.