Chicken & Egg, Part 2
Our previous go round on cause and effect concerned Saturday’s tragic events in Tucson. What caused the death of six people and the wounding of fourteen?
Conservatives tended to see a deranged man as the cause while dismissing permissive gun laws, a volatile political season, along with heated rhetoric and ads during the 2010 campaign.
Liberals tended to see many causes for the event: the deranged man, Arizona’s permissive gun laws, violent words and symbols during the campaign, and a general breakdown of public discourse.
But let’s take another example. Let us imagine that in Tucson that day a woman had an abortion. Would conservatives tend to see many causes: the woman herself, the physician, the free-standing clinic, legal permissiveness, moral breakdown and ultimately Roe V. Wade? On the other hand, would liberals argue that it is a woman’s choice? She gets the abortion; it’s not the doctor, the clinic, not the legal regime, nor Roe v.Wade that causes that abortion.
Is our stand on cause and effect an outcome of our political views and the matter under discussion? Or are there guidelines that would produce a more coherent and less polemical assessment of cause and effect?
Thomas Merton made an excellent observation about truth vs. partisanship back in the ’60s, which could promote some urgently needed reflection today. I posted on it last Friday as preparation for a follow-up about the debate over climate change. Unfortunately, the events in Tucson showed that there is no shortage of applications for Merton’s insight: http://new-wood.blogspot.com/2011/01/thomas-merton-on-truth-and-partisanship.html
To make a chick or a child, more is required than an egg. There’s the contribution, rarely mentioned, of the rooster or the man.
Only a man can make a child illegitimate. If a man impregnates a woman and then refuses to claim/name/select the forthcoming child as his own, it is unwanted, likely to be aborted, abandoned, etc. (The word illegitimate contains “leg”, proto-Indo-European root of sooooo many important words: legal, select, lecture, etc., etc., etc.)
Why are there no sanctions for men who refuse to marry the women they impregnate and support the children they beget? Why are they not denied the sacraments? Why does the Church ignore them? Anti-abortion people are always ranting about the women, the doctors, the clinics, etc., but never about the fathers. So much hypocrisy.
As to Loughner? Isn’t it looking like his father was mental, also? Not all there? Has anyone done a serious study of the fathers of mass murderers, bombers, terrorists?
A woman getting an abortion is of course tragic, but it happens all the time (we may need to remind ourselves how tragic each one is). That particular evil has become banal – in fact, most of society doesn’t muster much outrage about it anymore. As you point out, Margaret, there is an entire structure of sin to support it.
One could argue that the procurement of the handgun is also supported by a structure of sin, and I wouldn’t argue with that assertion. The parallel isn’t perfect, though, because many guns are sold without a shooting spree resulting; but I assume that the great majority of visits to an abortion mill result in a baby’s death.
Jim – would suggest that you missed Ms. Steifel’s point. Taking Tucson as the event, prominent neo-conservative talk radio folks positioned themselves by stating that these events happened because of the shooter ONLY. Some might have paid lip service to secondary or tertiary reasons but not most. They didn’t want to look at permissive gun ownership; didn’t want to look at underfinanced and supported mental health care systems (will Obamacare help address this?); etc. So, how do we solve this? Well, it is hard because of “crazies”.
Yet, when these same folks talk about abortion – it is more than just the woman. It is our current system; liberals, Roe v Wade, etc. And thus, they start with one abortion, one woman and globalize to a major campaign that blames all kinds of people. So, how do we solve this? Well, we start by changing the law; then we change more laws; we put Republicans in office (how did that work during 8 years of Bush?), etc.
“Why are there no sanctions for men who refuse to marry the women they impregnate and support the children they beget? Why are they not denied the sacraments? Why does the Church ignore them?”
In my view, it’s because Church teaching imperfectly reflects The Truth, as our friend Nancy Danielson would say. A man who skips out on his pregnant girlfriend and leaves her alone to have an abortion may be off the hook as far as the Church is concerned, but my guess is that God Almighty might judge him somewhat differently.
Catholic mothers–or mothers of Catholic sons–would do well to suggest this to their boys.
I think all are seeking a “cause” of what happened and if such cause (“handgun” “Palin” “insane indivdual” is identified, then the persons is 100% responsible for the event. If we eliminte the identified “cause” then we can prevent future tragic events.
I don’t think that’s a helpful way to look at it. There is the concept in law of “proximate” cause.” Do I think Palin was a cause? Yes. (She’s already demostated she thinks so, too) Was she a “proximate cause” to the extent she is somehow an accesory before the fact? No. (I apply the same analysis to violent rhetoric directed to George Bush, for example, from the left or any other political viewpoint.) Is the elimination of violent rhetoric going to prevent the next “Tuscon” Columbine Virgina Tech/Fort Hood? No.
The causes are intertwined and complex. It’s not a chicken and egg thing. There are too many chickens to count but they are all causes.
“Why are there no sanctions for men who refuse to marry the women they impregnate and support the children they beget?”
Would said woman really WANT to marry such a man?
I think that there are laws on the books in most jurisdictions that can levy child support in these cases — but I’m not a lawyer and will defer to members of the bar on that one.
But there could be no chicken without an egg. And vice versa.
This is overall a good post, but the discussion of abortion causation lacks any analogue to the claim that Loughner (a crazy person whose former friends describe him as a leftist) was somehow inspired by the innocuous and occasional use of battlefield metaphors by Sarah Palin, even though there is zero evidence that Loughner had even heard of her.
“Why are there no sanctions for men who refuse to marry the women they impregnate and support the children they beget? Why are they not denied the sacraments? Why does the Church ignore them?”
Can we nip this in the bud? Why does anyone suppose that abandoning the woman you’ve impregnated *isn’t* a serious sin? I’m not sure if “sanction” is the right way to think about separation from God, but what problem could be more serious?
The “Promise Keepers” movement of the 90′s (and there were Catholic variations on it, too) seems to have died on the vine, but the need to call men to responsibility is still there.
I suppose the insinuation of this accusation is that the church treats women more harshly than men. At least in this instance, though, the insinuation fails. A man abandoning his pregnant partner is just not a perfect parallel to obtaining an abortion. As Jimmy Mac points out, each situation needs to be looked at individually in its circumstances. I’d think that many of us can think of instances in our own lives where a woman we know became pregnant and elected not to have the man in her and the child’s life.
Here is where men and women are treated on an equal footing by the church: if the man is instrumental in causing the abortion – if he pressures her to have it, pays for it, etc. – then my understanding is that he incurs excommunication.
Jim, pardon me while I have a hot flash and fry your argument to a frizzled crisp.
I know Catholic husbands who leave family planning to their wives entirely. Wives, in frustration, turn to artificial birth control or sterilization. The husbands, who do not use condoms or seek vasectomies, can sleep the sleep of the blessed knowing that THEY are not the ones committing the sin, all the while enjoying unlimited conjugal privileges (assume their wives don’t mash their heads in with a brick).
I’m sorry, but it happens; I hear too many complaints and tears from Catholic friends about this to doubt it.
Moreover, if a woman seeks an abortion, she is automatically excommunicated. If her husband/boyfriend takes her to the abortion mill or pressures her to go.
But if he simply skips town or says, “It’s your choice” and refuses to do anything whatever, he is NOT automatically excommunicated (as far as the Church teaches). He can go to a priest and say he was sorry he didn’t stand by his girlfriend and help her protect their child and be on his merry way.
If the Church holds men equally accountable for the violating sex rules, for what they have done and, often more importantly, what they have left undone, then it should start talking about it more. A whole lot more.
Moreover, if a woman seeks an abortion, she is automatically excommunicated. If her husband/boyfriend takes her to the abortion mill or pressures her to go ADD, he also is automatically excommunicated.
That’s what happens when you WWP (write while pissed).
If I could return to the question in the post: How do our political positions affect our language of cause and effect?
(LOL)
(I’m still laughing at the pope’s cologne thread, and my husband is downstairs singing “I’m Old Fashioned”, so nothing I read here about nipping my insinuations in the bud is going to bother me.)
(In fact, reading the defensive posts by men heightens the humor of the morning. And bringing the Promise Keepers into it is even better!!)
(Great NYT this morning. Zenyatta. August Wilson. Best of all, imho, the grammar column. Loughner, apparently, is not the only nut who thinks grammar is a government plot.)
Back to the chicken vs. egg debate. What ever happened to the woman Thomas Merton impregnated and the child he abandoned? I think I read somewhere that they died in the blitz?
Touching that the Iowa Trappists donated the little coffin for Christina.
Whatever. Jim P. started it. :-)
Back to point:
Is our stand on cause and effect an outcome of our political views and the matter under discussion?
Are you talking about outcomes that are evil (assassination and abortion) specifically? If so, it seems to me that conservatives generally place the onus on the individual’s choice regardless of the social context around him or her. Liberals tend to look for mitigating circumstances. At least in media discourse. I think in my day-to-day conversations with friends and co-workers (my workplace is very conservative), there’s more common ground.
Or are there guidelines that would produce a more coherent and less polemical assessment of cause and effect?
You mean among media pundits or in everyday discourse among real people? Conflict is one of the seven news values and as long as pundits can keep things stirred up, they’ll attract viewers/listeners.
In everyday discourse, I think people do reason together, especially when faced with a specific problem to solve. The tension comes in when people are at a distance from an event and start talking in abstracts and generalities about it.
My co-workers are overwhelmingly conservative, and yet, I seem to be well-liked enough to be teased about politics, and we find a lot of common ground on problems we are assigned to solve (which, admittedly, are not abortion or gun control).
To hearken back to David Backes’ post linked above, there are a few people who want to be right all the time, but most of us want to find, if not Truth and Justice, at least fairness and compromise.
Of course politics plays a big role in our language of cause and effect as in Tucson.
But the question of women in the Church and how they’re treated is heavily influenced by religious politics.
Maybe the “finest brain” of the American hieravchy will let us know what to do (see Eugene Kennedy’s latest post at NCR on Cardinal George -spot on IMO.)
What continues to be lacking in discourse is not only how political (including religious politics) shapes our discourse but also the ability to be humble enough to recognize and admit when we are less than intellectually honest and keep fighting to justify OUR position.
Thanks Jean. There does seem to be a gap between our everyday conversations about cause and effect and media discourse. Although when in a crowd of the like-minded, politically speakiing, people seem to venture more direct connections. For example, here in no-guns city, there seems to be a general view that Arizona should tighten up its gun laws and provide better mental health services. Not a likely conclusion in Arizona apparently.
But does anyone here have experience trying to deal with a mentally ill person and getting them services? Would both liberals and conservatives agree that such people may cause mayhem in public settings–not assasinating people but, eg, sleeping in a subway car for days on end without bathroom facilities. And would we agree that there should be services for them? Where do we part company? Funds? Public services? Making such individuals take responsibility for themselves? Or their families?
“But does anyone here have experience trying to deal with a mentally ill person and getting them services? Would both liberals and conservatives agree that such people may cause mayhem in public settings–not assasinating people but, eg, sleeping in a subway car for days on end without bathroom facilities. And would we agree that there should be services for them? Where do we part company? Funds? Public services? Making such individuals take responsibility for themselves? Or their families?”
I don’t know any conservatives who do not agree that those incapacitated by mental or physical limitations need to be cared for on the public dime in some way. It’s a matter of how and how much where the disagreement comes in.
“But if he simply skips town or says, “It’s your choice” and refuses to do anything whatever, he is NOT automatically excommunicated (as far as the Church teaches). He can go to a priest and say he was sorry he didn’t stand by his girlfriend and help her protect their child and be on his merry way.”
Jean, please realize that I am properly blackened and smoking while writing this.
If the sacrament of reconciliation consists of traipsing off to church on Saturday, racing through three Hail Marys, and then going out that evening to find another woman to sleep with, then the church is failing its stewardship of the sacrament. A penitent who comes into the confessional with that attitude should be sent packing double-quick.
And, yes, some men are pigs. Maybe a lot of us are.
Sigh. I guess we have to stick to the topic.
Be patient while I paint with a broad brush.
Conservatives are very big on personal responsibility. That means the individuals get to take credit for good accomplishments (cf the cult of the entrepreneur), and also need to be held responsible for their failings. The notion of fallen, sinful man resonates with conservatives.
Liberals are very big on large, impersonal forces in society (e.g. racism, sexism, exploitation of the poor by the rich) limiting and even victimizing individuals. People are basically good but these gigantic forces continually hamstring their ability to realize their good personhood.
Occasionally there are flashpoints that really highlight this difference. The verdict in the OJ trial was one: conservatives will never, ever understand how he was acquitted, but liberals, even if they don’t completely support the verdict, at least kinda, sorta understand the logic that led to it.
Hence, conservatives see individuals as responsible agents, while liberals see individuals as good persons to whom bad stuff happens that is beyond their control.
The challenge of Loughner is that he doesn’t seem to fall neatly into either viewpoint. Mental illness by its nature ameliorates personal responsibility. But neither is mental illness attributable to large societal forces – it’s a very personal health issue.
The most a conservative can say about his situation is that it’s a shame that nobody around him took heroic efforts to get him treated. The most a liberal can say is that Arizona’s gun control regime is inadequate.
I don’t have any idea how great the difference would be, but I’d be willing to bet there would be a tendency among conservatives to consider Jared Loughner (the mentally ill, the homeless, alchoholics) more personally responsible for their actions and liberals to consider them less. I heard a conservative congressman saying Jared Loughner was a “monster with no respect for human life.” The liberal in me was somewhat taken aback, because I think of Loughner as an insane person not responsible for his actions.
On the other hand, I think it has probably been liberals who have made it very difficult to force the mentally ill into treatment unless they can be shown to be a danger to themselves and others. Interestingly, in Arizona, it is not difficult for a third party to get someone like Loughner evaluated for mental illness and get them into treatment. His schools could have done it, the police could have done it, and even the private individuals now being interviewed by the dozens about how creepy and frightening he was could have done it.
Of course, I would suspect liberals and conservatives alike don’t want facilities for the homeless, addicts, alcoholics, and so on in their neighborhoods. I my neighborhood in Manhattan (Chelsea) residents have been fighting a 325-bed homeless shelter. It’s not that close to me, and I don’t really think I would object if it were, but I am sure a lot of good liberals in Chelsea have been fighting it.
And, yes, some men are pigs. Maybe a lot of us are.
Well, all I can say is that I saw Carmen at the Met last night, and not all women are saints!
Prends garde à toi!
The verdict in the OJ trial was one: conservatives will never, ever understand how he was acquitted, but liberals, even if they don’t completely support the verdict, at least kinda, sorta understand the logic that led to it.
Here’s one liberal who doesn’t.
And what to make of this?
Fox News: Jared Loughner’s Former Girlfriend Says He’s “Faking” Insanity
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/fox-news-jared-loughners-former-girlfriend-says-hes-faking-insanity.php?ref=fpb
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-turn/2011/01/the_real_issue_in_arizona_schi.html
Agree with the WP article that it’s probably schizophrenia.
I don’t think he’s faking it. It takes time to become full-blown. Not unusual to appear intelligent in high school, before it takes hold.
When I saw the “crazy man” photo in the Times, it crossed my mind that he was making it up, or at least he was making up that face. Reminded me of Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.” But I defer to expert opinion.
I’m a liberal and the OJ outcome makes perfect sense to me; rich criminals can always buy better attorneys than the poor can.
My friend Jim P. agrees with me that conservatives tend to place more emphasis on personal responsibility and that liberals tend to look at individuals in the larger social context. I think there’s a lot of common ground there, but that liberals and conservatives talk beyond that common ground, sadly.
For instance, as a liberal I would say that even if we’re swimming in a sea of guns, we’re still individually responsible for our actions. I would even say that the restriction of guns is less important than teaching moral values against violence to our children. I don’t think I’ve said anything there a conservative would disagree with.
I would, however, say that when guns are readily available, we must accept the fact that there will be individuals who will be tempted to use them, and who will use them. It might be prudent to keep the most efficient of these killing devices out of their hands and to revisit the ways in which we do that, even to the point of tightening laws. That’s where conservatives might start to balk. They have an essentially adversarial view of government, whereas I, as a liberal, view the government AS us.
I would further say that when public discourse dehumanizes people, it bears re-examining whom we listen to. That doesn’t mean I support laws that restrict discourse. But conservatives sometimes automatically think that’s what I mean when I say that we need to be more responsible about what we say.
Re speculations about Loughner’s mental state–I find this of great concern for two reasons: a) I think it’s irresponsible reportage and b) it jeopardizes the ability for Loughner to get a fair trial, no mean consideration given that Arizona is a death penalty state.
Agree with David on the OJ trial -Lance Ito was terrible.
But, from experience, I know how hard it is to get a mentally ill person committed because he’s a “danger to himself or the community.” (never mind smelling bad or desperately in need of a shower.)
The notion of “dangerousness” is difficult as many threats/intimidations are nevver caried out, though some obviously are.
In that context, the question of balancing individual rights with public safety is highly pertinent again now.IMO beware of tnhose who only talk about rights.
Interesting column in an Albuquerque paper:
http://www.abqjournal.com/upfront/142146579562upfront01-14-11.htm
Wow – where to start.
First, this confuses causes with conditions.
Second, if conservatives are guilty of this “inconsistency,” aren’t liberals even more so? What do we here so often? If you make abortion illegal it won’t make a difference because women will get them anyway. Given that the vast majoritiy of gun violenece is committed using illegal weapons already, and that all new gun regulation, by definition, regulates lawful gun owners, and statistically lawful gun owners committ very few offenses – well, you’re regulating the wrong people. Compared to aborthion, where the number of abortions, legal and illegal, more than doubled in less than five years after R v. W, it seems to me the case for legal proscription on abortion is far, far more compelling.
The differences among the things you mention aren’t about recognizing “tertiary” or remote causes, but whether something is a cause at all. You ask – “Are there guidelines that would produce a more coherent and less polemical assessment of cause and effect?” Well, yeah, facts. Fact, there is no direct correlation between gun regulation and gun violence. In fact, the highest rate of gun violence in the US is in Wash DC which has the most restrictive laws. The highest correlation factors for gun violence are race and education, not legal regulation. There isn’t even a great correlation between gun violence and homicide even though most homidcides are with guns. My state, Massachusetts, ranks dead last for gun deaths but is in the middle of the pack for homicides where Montana is near the top for gun deaths and toward the bottom for homicides. If you look at the ten lowest homicide rates for states, only Hawaii has a lower than average gun ownership rate. The lowest, New Hampshire, has one of the most permissive gun ownership regimes in the US.
So when you say AZ’s permissive gun laws “caused” the incident I ask how? Are you saying but for those laws this nut wouldn’t have found a way to get a gun? If he didn’t have a high capacity clip – assuming that he couldn’t get one even if it was illegal – would that have made a difference? Someone with even minimal training and practice can replace a clip in a matter of 2 seconds.
The correct analogy would be if abortion opponents were blaming surgical instrument manufacturers for abortion.
As to your other “causes” I again say, show me the money. What scintila of evidence shows that imagary, words, or political climate had anything to do with this incident in other than the fevered imaginations of progressives?
Without facts, your idea of “cause and effect” is like saying the rooster causes the sun to rise.
Sean,
Aside from countries at war (in some form or another), nobody else has the kind of mass shootings we have in the United States. I don’t think anybody blames gun manufacturers for mass shootings any more than pro-lifers blame medical equipment manufacturers for abortion, but pro-lifers do blame the abortion industry for abortion to the extent that women who have abortions are deemed victims of the abortion industry. I would say the NRA, gun sellers (especially gun shows), and conservatives are to at least some degree analogous to the abortion industry. The analogy isn’t a very close one, but I don’t think it is false. And of course movies and television, which glamorize gun violence, are also somewhat analogous to the abortion industry. (I think a lot of pro-lifers would express concern that television, movies, and other forms of popular culture promote abortion in much the same way they promote guns.)
I heard someone who seemed to be defending the kind of gun that Loughner used as a reasonable weapon for the general public because many policemen use it. It’s not a “bad” gun. But does it make sense for private citizens (including crazy people) to be as well armed (or better armed) than the police?
I admit that I groaned when the issue of gun control came up as a result of this shooting, because it’s such a cliché, and nothing at all will come of discussing it again. But I think it must at least be acknowledged that there can be no rational discussion of gun control, because there are two extremes, and the extreme with the real power in this case happens to be the NRA and the right.
Discussing “reasonable” restrictions on abortion doesn’t work, because there are well-placed people in the pro-abortion cause who feel there are no such things as reasonable restrictions. Similarly, discussing “reasonable” restrictions on gun ownership doesn’t work because there are well-placed people in the pro-gun camp who feel there are no such things as reasonable restrictions. These are no doubt two issues on which, if the majority in the middle could have its way, there would be more restrictions on both abortions and gun ownership.
What scintila of evidence shows that imagary, words, or political climate had anything to do with this incident in other than the fevered imaginations of progressives?
Once again, I state the position that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party bear no discernible responsibility for what happened in Tucson. However, it was not a totally random event. It is difficult to imagine it happening anywhere other than the United States. Shooting as many people as you can and then committing suicide (and it appears Lougner was expecting to die) is very much an American occurrence.
A rather recent psychological study found that conservatives are scarier individuals than liberals. (Sorry, I didn’t keep the reference.) This would explain to some extent why conservatives are more likely to be pro-gun ownership than liberals — they’re frightened. Seans’s figures (about legal gun owners not using them illegally) seem to corroborate this. Scared gun owners would be more likely to use them only for self-protection, and they are no threat to others who are peaceful.
It seems to me this leaves us with two very different classes of gun owners — the law-abiding, scary ones and the ones who are quite willing to use them for illegal purposes. But how to tell the difference between the two? Are there any figures about those who buy the machine guns of various sorts? Are they more violence-prone? Or do the peaceful conservatives buy such guns but not use them? Or do they use them to hunt wolves, etc.? I just don’t see any use for them whateve in an urban setting.
If not gun control, how about bullet control. Representative Carolyn McCarhty (D.-NY) will introduce legislation next week banning the type of clip used in Tuscon. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/mccarthy-hopes-to-pull-obama-off-sidelines-on-gun-safety.php#more
And what about this? “Palin To Keynote Hunting Club Convention In Nevada”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/palin-to-keynote-hunting-club-convention-in-nevada.php?ref=fpb
“(I think a lot of pro-lifers would express concern that television, movies, and other forms of popular culture promote abortion in much the same way they promote guns.)”
————-
Could you give any examples of shows that promote abortion?
I’ve seen a few articles lately that express the opposite view: that t.v., movies, etc. shy away from abortion. One example of a woman changing her mind about having an abortion was Joan on Mad Men. (At least I think she changed her mind. The new season will make it clear.)
An opinion about abortion on t.v.:
http://www.iowastatedaily.com/opinion/article_5e91a486-1ab1-11e0-b231-001cc4c03286.html
Comparing the abortion issue with the gun issue, it seems to me that women who have abortions also fall into two broad and very different categories — those who think that real children are involved even at the very beginning of pregnancy and those who do not. It is the former who agonize over them, while othera really do think they’re just dealing with something like a wart at least in the first trimester. Discussions of the problem need to recognize this difference of opinion.
Complexity, complexity.
Dividing women who have abortions into just two categories is hardly complex.
It’s like liberal/conservative.
I can’t think of anyone who is liberal on every issue or conservative on every issue. E.g., some Catholics who are very liberal on most issues may still long for Gregorian Chant.
And some registered Republicans, donors to their party, pretend to be liberal on message boards for whatever their reasons may be.
Could you give any examples of shows that promote abortion?
Gerelyn,
I think the complaint against television series and movies would probably be that they avoid the issue almost entirely but show a casual attitude toward sex that in real life contributes to unwanted pregnancy.
But just two nights ago I saw a report on World News with Diane Sawyer (whom I happen to love) about a new blood test to detect Down Syndrome without amniocentesis. The whole thrust of the report was how wonderful this was for pregnant mothers, because amniocentesis has significant risks that the blood test didn’t have, so we could all heave a sigh of relief. But of course for most pregnant women, the purpose of testing would be so they could abort if Down Syndrome was found. There was not a hint in the report that testing for Down Syndrome might not be many people’s idea of a great thing.
Has anyone mentioned E.J. Dionne’s article featured in the current Commonweal? He says that there are many people who actually feel that they need protection from what they see as the tyrannical feds, and they think gun possession give them such protection. Some of them claim that their machine guns are necessary because, while there were only rifles during the American Revolution, there are much more powerful government.military weapons now.
This reminds me of what Earl Long told the terrible Louisiana racist Leander Perez when Perez phoned Long and insisted that he (Long) do something drastic about the immanent integration of the New Orleans public schools by the federal government. Earl Long, pragmatist through and through, replied laconically, “What do you want me to do, Leander? The feds have got the atom bomb,”
There is a similar severe neurosis, even paranoia, in the folks today who think a mere automatic rifle is a match for the fire-power of U. S. Marshalls or the FBI or whatever the feds want to throw at them. Not only is insanity common, severe neurosis is even more common..
“So when you say AZ’s permissive gun laws ’caused’ the incident I ask how?”
Hold on there, Sharp Shootin’ Sean. Nobody said Arizona gun laws caused the killings. I searched this here thread for the word “cause” in case I missed somethin’, and I didn’t see nobody sayin’ that a-tall. Seems to me you’re a mite quick to pull them arguments outn’ your holster and start blazin’ away at them pantywaist liberals before you even know what they’re sayin’ sometimes.
Anyhoo, before Margaret throws me outta the saloon window and Marshall Dillon comes to take me to the lock-up for being a smart ass, I’ll leave with this interesting study done by Secret Service agents about the mindset of assassins–whom they actually interviewed–which blows some myths about political motivation and insanity out of the water:
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/14/132909487/fame-through-assassination-a-secret-service-study
Throw you out, Jean. Never!
Ms. Steinfels – you asked: “…..But does anyone here have experience trying to deal with a mentally ill person and getting them services? Would both liberals and conservatives agree that such people may cause mayhem in public settings–not assasinating people but, eg, sleeping in a subway car for days on end without bathroom facilities. And would we agree that there should be services for them? Where do we part company? Funds? Public services? Making such individuals take responsibility for themselves? Or their families?”
Currently the corporation I work for is the largest behavioral health company in the US. Specifically, it has a very large contract to cover Medicaid/Medicare members in Maricopa County, Arizona. The state of Arizona is split into regions/counties and it contracts with large mental health companies to manage their Medicaid/Medicare mental health/substance abuse members. Our contract is set up to include local MH boards, community clinics, county mental health associations so that a wide net can weigh in on treating mental health patients and county/region citizins. Our experience is that you can most effectively treat/track these patients by using neighborhood and community counseling centers; using technology to track and update patient cases consistently; use technoloby and legwork to track total health of each patient which would include participation in therapy; group activities; family support (if available); actual use of medication; coordinating residence information-MDs-counselors-work (if applicable) so that a comprehensive treatment plan can be administered and tracked.
Challenges – state budgets continue to cut finances and support of these federally mandated programs; patients may have little or no family support; 20% are street people; certain mental health conditions result in patient’s stopping or not using their medications; tracking and finding this patient population is difficult.
Maricopa County has had a history over the last 10 years of some high profile, violent events in which a mental health patient was the antagonist. Despite everyone’s best intentions, mental illness can cause traumatic injuries, deaths, etc. (in the same way, there is no perfect test to determine when or if a person will commit suicide).
Given these situations, MH patients will treat themselves – drugs, alcohol, etc. to alleviate their emotional pain. Guns, crime, etc. can be a means by which they attain their “self-medication”…..it is a very difficult environment and situation. Successes are rare and MH conditions are usually for life – not something you can fix. At best you can control and address symptoms.
Our company worked the the state of Arizona’s Department of Health & Human Services to set up an 800 number for any Arizona citizen to call who was trying to deal with the Tucson events.
We host monthly community events in Phoenix to raise awareness and provide support to the Medicare/Medicaid population and their supporters.
There are many suggestions to improve the public process – but the disconnects are numerous. States shortchange MH budgets; states make counties financially responsible for MH concerns but give little financial support; local hospitals wind up having to treat these folks in ERs – expensive, one time, and not comprehensive treatment. Our medical system, unfortunately, is based on ER treatment – the opposite of what a MH condition needs. As these patients grow older, families give or push them out. So, laws, structures making families responsible do not work. In fact, MH patients don’t or can’t understand basic laws – their conditions work against structures.
As we already know, est. 50 million folks have no insurance coverage – a large percent of these folks present with MH conditions because they can not hold a job; or so low paying that they have no insurance coverage, etc.
This is a huge US need – in some ways, socialized medicine better addresses the MH conditions -altho, they also face the non-compliant street people.
Hope I was able to address some of your questions.
David,
Really? No other countries?
Aside from the obvious, near daily mass killings occuring across the border from Tucson, how about:
Derrik Bird, 2010, UK 11 dead 14 wounded
Eric Borel, 1995, France, 12 dead
Lubomir Harman, 2010, Slovakia, 8 dead
David Grey, 1990, New Zealand, 14 dead
Martin Bryant, 1996, Australia, 35 dead
You don’t need to imagine it – it does happen other places.
Jean,
I beg to differ – Margaret’s post says -
“Liberals tended to see many causes for the event: the deranged man, Arizona’s permissive gun laws, violent words and symbols during the campaign, and a general breakdown of public discourse.”
Also, we aren’t talking about some generic connection between politics and the mindset of assassins, we are talking about this murder, done by a mentally ill man who by all accounts had fixated on this congresswoman since 2007. Long before anyone knew who Sarah Palin, Barak Obama, and Michele Bachman were.
Bill deHaas: Thank you! You certainly did.
If I may…to connect this to the policy question. It would seem that your company has a structure for responding to the need, but that the state does not adequately fund it. In the case of people who in some significant way cannot live a self-sustaining existence, it is hard to see how they can fully meet the conservative challenge–take responsibility for yourself.
If Mr. Lochner is such a person with such a condition, will matters end with a declaration that he is not responsible for what he did? Is no one, no thing, responsible for what happened?
So, I take it that you aren’t even going to bother even trying to do what President Obama asked and stop this corrosive partisanship.
Sean, read the post again. Margaret did not say that AZ gun laws caused this incident; nobody here has. Margaret merely set up a possible tension between liberals (bad gun laws at fault) and conservatives (bad men at fault).
You, in your haste to bring your flame thrower over here and fry some liberal fannies (and I, in frying poor Jim about his comments about men above), failed to look at Margaret’s larger question: Is there there was some way to explain or discuss these incidents without falling into our partisan tribes?
Given the comments here, I’d say the answer to Margaret’s question is, “apparently not.”
The diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions is still in its infancy – yes, huge advancements but we have significant gaps. How and what parts of the brain are impacted by certain psych conditions is unknown……what causes some conditions can only be guessed at. Some feel that in the forseeable future scientists will figure out the “damaged” part of the brain and develop medications to fix these conditions.
Until that happens, we will continue to see folks traumatized by mentally ill people who are not legally responsible for their actions. Who is responsible? Well, now we have multiple debates – is it the state, federal, county, hospital districts? How about insurance companies?
Would propose that in the US we have too many gaps in terms of actual treatment coverage e.g. person turns 19 or 21 and is no longer on the parents’ insurance plan; has no job or loses their job; and senses the onset of a psych condition. Who encourages treatment; if sought, who helps cover the cost (e.g. it can run $50,000 annually to treat a paranoid szchiophrenic). What is the criteria to be used by police, medical staff, school staff, judges to determine mental illness and a requirement for treatment (we are very careful to protect individual freedoms – even a court mandated psych eval requires a hearing before a judge who will usually only commit for 30 days and may require 2 MDs to confirm).
As you can see with the Tucson situation – you have a family that may have a genetic history of MH issues; you may have one or both parents who are impaired. Who then is responsible? Many MH conditions only emerge in the late 20′s or 30′s – who is responsible then?
We need a national study on this with solid recommendations. The free market will not solve this – you don’t make big profits treating mental health issues. Government tends to pass the buck from one entity to the other with no resolution. Our market medical delivery system is not set up to deal with mental illness. It requires the newer medical, total wellness approaches via home medical settings – comprehensive medical teams working together and being paid for those services; social impetus to continue to lower resistance and social stigma attached to MH issues e.g. MH is a medical issue just like cancer but do most of us really believe that; do we behave that we; do we see people with MH issues the same way we would someone with cancer.
Jean,
First, she specifically indicated that conservatives ignore causes in some instance (gun control) and not others (abortion). To which I pointed out there is a difference between a cause – the doctor who performs an abortion – and a condition – permissive gun laws.
She asked specifically, “Is our stand on cause and effect an outcome of our political views and the matter under discussion? Or are there guidelines that would produce a more coherent and less polemical assessment of cause and effect?”
To which I responded, yes, use the facts. I used the gun control and abortion example because that’s the one she cited.
Causation is a factual question. You can look at data and make judgements. That’s one of the things about this incident that I found so offensive. Literally, less than an hour after it happened, people were blaming “our heated political climate,” and even specifically naming people like Palin and Bachman. No facts, just an impression that if you say it often enough can become “reality.”
The real facts are that serious political violence in the US is exceedingly rare and attempts like this almost always have nothing to do with politics. Look at France, Britain, and Greece recently. These paragons of progressive culture all have more frequent and more serious political violence than we do here and have for years. I lived in Europe, we are pikers when it comes to heated political rhetoric.
Someone says – only in America – my response isn’t just an “outcome of my political views,” it’s because it just isn’t true.
Sean, Sean, let’s parse out some of your statements:
“Causation is a factual question. You can look at data and make judgements.”
A judgment is not a fact. In my judgment, the facts that Loughner could obtain a gun and buy ammo at Walmart sufficient to mow down a a U.S. Congressional representative, a nine-year-old, and several other people at the rate of one per second was a factor in this incident. Is your judgment the same? Or is it your judgment that the way Arizona screens gun buyers and makes ammo available is beside the point; if the guy was bent on killing, he could have rigged up a molotov cocktail and achieved the same purpose?
“Literally, less than an hour after it happened, people were blaming ‘our heated political climate,’ and even specifically naming people like Palin and Bachman.”
Were they “blaming it?” Or were they arguing that it was a contributing factor? And, if we’re going to stick to facts, WHO used the word “blame,” and can you find a time stamp on that utterance on the Internet that would prove that less than an hour after the last shot was fired somebody blamed “our heated political climate.”
And it so, so what?
The facts are that Ms. Palin has used guns-n-ammo verbiage like “Don’t retreat, reload,” and put various congressional districts on a map in crosshair icons. Is it entirely incomprehensible that someone would ask whether this type of communication agitates unstable personalities?
“The real facts are that serious political violence in the US is exceedingly rare and attempts like this almost always have nothing to do with politics. Look at France, Britain, and Greece recently.”
If we’re sticking with facts, please define “serious political violence” and provide numbers that prove it is “rarer” here in the U.S. than in France, Britain and Greece. Also define “recently.” How far back are we going?
“I lived in Europe, we are pikers when it comes to heated political rhetoric.”
I don’t even know what this means. That our political rhetoric is more “heated”? How do you define “heated”? Worse than Question Period in Parliament? And if our political rhetoic is more heated, what’s your point? That it is irrelevant to political violence because we have less of it? (Which you haven’t yet proved?)
FWIW, I see most political assassinations as the actions of socially isolated, unstable people. It is a risk we have to live with in a free society. I do not endorse restrictions on constitutionally guaranteed freedoms to try to curb it or we’d all be living under curfews, daily pat-downs, wire taps, and worse encroachments than we have now.
That doesn’t mean, either, that I condone Palin’s type of rhetoric nor the fact that high-powered guns and ammo are readily available at local department stores.
Jean, you get tenure!
Here a paragraph from Stephen Walt at “Foreign Policy.”
“One problem, of course, is that causality in a case like this is always murky. When someone arrives at a public event and starts shooting people, how do we determine the relative weight of mental illness, personal experience, opportunity, lax gun-control laws, and the toxic soup of violent rhetoric to which he had been exposed, when we try to figure out how something like this could have happened? Granting that Rep. Giffords’s assailant was by all the evidence a deeply disturbed individual, it is still true that his madness manifested itself as an attack on a politician. He didn’t shoot up his workplace, or a school, or even a random shopping mall: He chose a political target. And whatever his personal motives or internal dialogues may have been, he did this at a moment in our history when self-interested hatemongers have combined violent rhetoric and political polarization to an unprecedented degree. Yet for the American right, the violent, and frequently Manichaean, rhetoric that has been the stock in trade of some of their most prominent spokespeople (including Sarah Palin) is totally irrelevant, and anyone who says differently is just playing partisan politics.”
Whole post worth a read: http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/13/following_the_trail_of_political_rhetoric_to_violence_can_we_deny_that_words_matter
Bravo, Jean and Margaret!
Just want to add that the President, in his address to the nation this morning, called for working together now on the issues that matter, despite the “shrill rhetoric” we’ve had.
The question going forward is will there be that workiong together or continued attempts, at every turn, to unseat the President?
It is amazing how much this event is a Rorschach test. Here’s one thing I have been wondering. If “the left” had not been so quick to assign some level of responsibility to the violent rhetoric employed on “the right” in the past election cycle, would “the right” have felt sobered and chastened of its own accord when symbolic violence again politicians is juxtaposed to the real thing?
Or is it that there’s no need and no prospect for a rhetorical adjustment so long as people like Obama are in power and our American way of life remains threatened? And are there things that “the left” could be doing so that people on “the right” do not feel the need to offer events like the firing of machine guns at political rallies or the use of gun terminology to mark political identity and spur political involvement? I suspect the upsurge in gun-themed rhetoric to lessen, but it’s interesting to think that now “the right” can say their freedom of expression in being curtailed by the thought police on “the left” (when the rhetorical tactic has played itself out in any case).
Anyway… no one I have heard or have read has addressed a strain of misogyny running through this event as a contributing factor. I have been struck by the fact that Rep. Giffords is attractive and accomplished and seems to represent something unattainable for Loughner. I think female politicians have a particular burden to bear in this respect. I opine without any proof that if Loughner had lived in a district in which his congressman was a man this event wouldn’t have happened. And I opine without proof that if his congressman had been a Republican, man or woman, this event would not have occurred.
“it’s interesting to think that now “the right” can say their freedom of expression in being curtailed by the thought police on “the left” (when the rhetorical tactic has played itself out in any case).”
William FG –
The right’s freedom of expression has been curtailed not by the government but public opinion, thank God.
As for misogyny, yes, that’s a possibility given some reports of Loughner’s state of mind. But if he’s like me (and crazies and non-crazies do have more commonalities than differences), I think) his big decisions have many motives. The human brain is the most complex thing in the whole universe (there are more connections between brain cells than there are stars in the heavens!!!) and the brain is constantly complicating our perceptual and motivational reactions. Small wonder many motives are being assigned to the shooter.
That’s why I can’t help but believe that in all probability the social acceptability of violent speech in this country added to his feeling that he would be admired by at least some people for what he was about to do.
I watched a bit of Fox News last night to see what they’re saying. Yes, they’re cooling it. I might be very wrong of course, but I actually got the impression that O’Reilly was somewhat shaken by the whole thing. Greta van S., as usual, made sense. Didn’t watch Beck. (I think he’s one of the crazies, poor man. Makes things up and then believes what he just imagined.)
Most [many] [some] of us recognize that many/some conservatives and liberals entered the fray on behalf of their favored cause[s] to try to explain Tucson. Some of those explanations seemed to disappear as the “mad” man cause came to the fore. Daily Kos seems to have posted something that I never saw but that is cited as a far-out left explanation. The use of the phrase “blood libel” seems to have been introduced in a WSJ column early in the week and then, probably foolishly, adopted by Sarah Palin. It seems, but I could be wrong, that much of the rhetorical fireworks have died down, though perhaps there will be various political and legislative follow-ups.
I was impressed to see Governor Brewer greet President Obama at the Tucson airport–since many of her previous words and images seemed off the wall. Representative McCarthy’s effort to have the kind of clip used in Tuscon banned seems a modest effort to curb these multiple murders and injuries (her own husband was killed with such a gun and clip; and her son wounded–she knows whereof she speaks).
Underlying all of this: Is William Fitzgerald’s point @12:32 to be given greater attention? Racism and misogyny are not the cause of Tuscon, but are they remote factors in the polarized state agitating the extreme right (i.e., not all conservatives, probably not even most conservatives). Is there a sense in the land that an African-American in the White House and an increasing number of women holding political office represent a threat to America as we think we know it? Hard to pin down, but I don’t think it can be dismissed out of hand.
Thanks for the accolades, but I wish Sean (or Stuart Buck or P. Flanagan) would come back and argue the points I raised above.
If we are to get at some sense of what the Tuscon massacre means, if we are to wrestle with issues and get beyond political tribalism, it doesn’t help to have conservatives leave the field.
Maybe they’re at target practice. Or playing golf.
Jean,
Point one –
I didn’t say judgments were facts, I said they need to be based on facts. The specific answer to your question, whether he could have done this in the absence of his ability to purchase the firearm that he did, I don’t know, and neither do you. As I said in an earlier thread, I think this is a fair area to discuss in relation to this tragedy, but I simply point out there is a great deal of evidence to indicate that gun control laws have virtually no effect on people who are hell bent on breaking the law anyway. so if we have the discussion, it should be based on data and facts, not “common wisdom” or what “everyone knows.”
Point 2 -
All I can say is that I heard the names Palin and Bachman mentioned in relation to this crime before I ever heard of Laughner. I don’t claim that they were laying “blame” in an ultimate sense at their feet, but they were certainly drawing a connection and the fact is that there is absolutely no connection whatsoever. It’s not incomprehensible, but it indicated the people making the statements were more interested in making a point than in what actuially happened. Seeing as the people making this connection themselves have a political agenda, I found it opportunistic and practically ghoulish. Imagine if someone like Tom Tancredo wrote a blog entry immediately blaming an illegal immigrant, how would you feel about that, but Paul Krugman speculated it was some “right-wing nut” before he had any facts and progressives are praising his courage.
As for violence in Europe, haven’t you been watching the news? Go back four months – there you go. Violent demonstrations have occurred in all thise countries, all in relation to government policies. According to Kieth Olberman we are supposed to get our knickers in a twist over Tea Party rallies mostly made up of middle-aged, middle class people, but students throwing molotov cocktails and overturning cars in Europe is just good clean fun.
Try and find analogous situations in the US to these
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/world/europe/15briefs-Greece.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28197250/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/5258634/Riots-across-Europe-fuelled-by-economic-crisis.html
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/160296.html
I would define “heated” by name calling, mud-slinging, personal attacks, and the like. And by that standard, I found Europeans far more likely to engage. I also found them to take politics far more personally than Americans do.
The bottom line is that I think this handwrining about “dangerous” political rhetoric is a bunch of hooey. Crosshairs on a poster and using the word “reload” are not calls to violence. They are threatening only in the minds of those who want them to be to serve their purposes. Just as the nonsense above about racism any misogyny is.
Speaking of misogyny – why is it that the left seems to reserve its most vitriolic criticism for women conservatives?
For those who still cling to the myth that it is the right wing which has a monopoly on violent political discourse: a good primer on the real world. The left-hating vitriol against Sarah Palin is especially revolting, somehow even worse than the multiple instances of “Death to GW Bush” imagery.
Concessions and agreements: the right does not have a monopoly on violent political discourse. Crosshairs on a poster or the use of the word “reload” are not calls to violence.
I assert that in this past election cycle an escalation of violent, gun-related rhetoric was a calculated political strategy, an infectious meme across the Tea Party political landscape. It served as emotional fuel for the “take our country” back (from socialists, crypto-Islamists, America-haters, etc.) frame. Symbolic violence was used to motivate political action, exploit the satisfaction of thinking of one’s vote in substitutionary terms for one’s bullet. I think it is unhealthy rhetoric and a sign of something wrong in our polity. I think the marriage of political activism on the right and a celebration of guns as an instrument for taking out one’s political opponents is not something new in the past 30-40 years in American politics.
When the Tea Party opponent of Debbie Wasserman Schultz invited political supporters to fire off machine guns at targets marked with the initials DWS he crossed a line of decency and prudence that should make every decent and prudent citizen say “Whoa!” and “Really?” When Jesse Kelly rad as a candidate for national office holding M-16 rifles and ask, “Does this look like a RINO (Republican in Name Only)?” I say that the rhetoric is diseased, not worthy of our republic. And dangerous because it takes us further down a road to where symbolic violence becomes real violence.
So, Sean, if you were able to speak with Gabby Giffords back in 2010 when she complained that Palin’s PAC used crosshairs as a symbol that her district was targeting for a take-over, would you have told her to lighten up or to toughen up? That there was nothing in principle wrong with using this particular imagery in a politcal campaign? Or that her protests were themselves a willful political calculation and in no way a legitimate reaction for a candidate? Would you have reminded her that there is a place in our public square for this kind of symbolic language to motivate political action, that politics ain’t bean bag, after all?
I thought at the time that the localization of crosshair imagery onto particular districts and named candidates crossed a line it was indecent to cross. I thought the provocative rhetoric legitimated a vein of similar rhetoric that would subsequently be tapped in 2010. I thought any candidate for national office who flirted symbolically with the visual and verbal tropes of assassination (and not merely the “war” rhetoric of defeating opponents) was implicitly summoning dark forces in our history that we were best rid of.
It seems that Loughner, like Oswald, acted alone and under his own particular demons. But the rhetoric of 2010 is still dangerous and should be swept into the dustbin.
Call me a wuss if you wish.
CORRECTION: ” I think the marriage of political activism on the right and a celebration of guns as an instrument for taking out one’s political opponents IS something new in the past 30-40 years in American politics.”
“Speaking of misogyny – why is it that the left seems to reserve its most vitriolic criticism for women conservatives?”
I think this is a great question. I have been tempted to draw on misogynistic terms to express my distaste for certain women conservatives, from Schlafly to Palin. I think the left should be hard at work at purifying its own discourse in this regard by not using language demeaning of women against those women one disagrees with.
It may well be for the same reason that conservatives found in former Speaker Pelosi a perfect image of their distaste for liberal politics. My sense is that there was something approaching complementarity between the right’s revulsion at Pelosi and the left’s revulsion at Palin and that both of these are a testament to the valued added factor of misogyny.
But does anyone here have experience trying to deal with a mentally ill person and getting them services?
I have worked for the last 20 years in community mental health and currently work in a program that serves people with mental health issues who commit low to medium level offences and whose mental health issue can be managed in the community.
On the point of Loughner. He does fit the profile of somebody who would have benefited from a mental health intervention but who for a variety of reasons it doesn’t appear ever came into contact with the formal system.
Of course in hindsight it is easy to recognize all the signs and put them together but at the time it is very difficult to involuntarily seek mental health services for someone.
I personally think that it is a very slippery slope to start making it easier to intervene involuntarily as some in the media have suggested. Tough cases make bad law.
I think a retrospective analysis of the entire situation would help in terms of seeing where the medical system could have helped. From what I understand the parents also have what could be described as mental health issues. Presumably they have or have had access to a GP. The GP should have been able to identify some of these problems and at least begin to plant some seeds to the parents in terms of getting an assessment for their child or themselves. That is assuming that they accessed the medical system.
Secondly, there is the issue of accessibility to guns. I am mystified as to the resistance of gun control laws particularly handguns an certainly concealed weapons.
Finally, what will now in all likelihood occur is that this young man will undergo a psych assessment for criminal responsibility. Criminal responsibility simply means whether he was criminally responsible for his actions. Both things can be true at the same time. 1. He is criminally responsible and 2. He has a mental illness. The presence of a mental illness does not automatically mean that he is not criminally responsible.
In Ontario, the psychiatric facility assesses criminal responsibility but it is ultimately up to the judge to make the determination. The judge can choose to accept or reject the assessment.
If he is found not criminally responsible, he will be placed in a forensic psychiatric facility and in Ontario would be under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Review Board. I am sure similar kinds of bodies exist in states. They decide conditions of release, if ever, etc.
As for “faking” it. It is not really that easy to do. There are questions and tests that can be done that can determine it. For example, if there was a lot of pre-planning required, that would suggest that this was not due to a mental illness. Also if there was an attempt after the fact to conceal, that would also suggest an awareness that the person knew they were doing something wrong.
“Speaking of misogyny – why is it that the left seems to reserve its most vitriolic criticism for women conservatives?”
Come now. If progressives are so prejudiced against women conservativies, why is it that we haven’t engaged in vitriolic criticism of Elizabeth Dole, Sandra Day O’Connor and Olympia Stowe????
Sean, I appreciate your willingness to engage.
Point 1: Yes, I have seen stats that show gun control laws have very little effect on violent crime. I don’t know why some people feel the need to own automatic weapons, but I don’t really care as long as they’re not wreaking havoc on others. I do think it’s interesting that in a state such as Arizona, where guns are widely available and lots of people are carrying them, that Loughner was not subdued by someone shooting him, but by a little old lady like me grabbing his hand and two big guys grappling him by hand.
Point 2: You are merely appealing to pathos here and tring to bait and switch (how would you feel if …). Show proof where someone “blames” Palin for these killings.
Point 3: I would argue that you have to go back further than four years to compare relative violence among Western democracies–how about looking at the last 50 years–and that you need to include more countries, such as Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. As far as your comparison goes, yes, there has been more unrest in Britain and France during the period you mention, though I think Greece, which has had a checkered history viz free and fair elections, is a poor example to offer to prove your point.
Point 4: If we’re going to stick to facts rather than anecdotal evidence, you need to produce a study showing that Europeans are nastier in their political rhetoric. Moreover, if you think they ARE nastier AND that their level of violence is higher, doesn’t that SUPPORT the notion that political rhetoric affects violence? Or do I misunderstand what you’re trying to say here.
Point 5: Is the vitriol against Ms. Palin an example of misogyny leveled agains women conservatives in general? If so, why doesn’t Olympia Snow or Sandra Day O’Connor, or Barbara Bush draw such fire? It’s my view that what you’re seeing isn’t misogyny, but the fact that Plain is hardly the intellectual heir to William Buckley. Or George Will. Or any other thoughtful and articulate conservative.
“Point 5: Is the vitriol against Ms. Palin an example of misogyny leveled against women conservatives in general? If so, why doesn’t Olympia Snow or Sandra Day O’Connor, or Barbara Bush draw such fire? ”
Jean is spot on. The vituperation against Palin is not a universal animus against conservative women or misogynistic in its essence. We might consider the level of misogyny directed at Hillary Clinton until she became a foil by which to oppose Obama as the increasingly likely nominee. Much of the early animus against Palin was a visceral reaction against the cynicism that led to her nomination. It seemed a cruel joke that Palin could be the fruit of so much effort over many generations to advance opportunities for women in public service.
Still, I think many on the left should speak more respectfully of her by avoiding misogynistic epithets.
“I assert that in this past election cycle an escalation of violent, gun-related rhetoric was a calculated political strategy”
Do you include Democrat Senate candidate (and winner) Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who, quite literally, shot a bullet through the Cap and Trade bill with a rifle in his most often run campaign ad?
Were there ANY Republican campaign ads that were that over the top in terms of guns and implicit violence?
“Speaking of misogyny – why is it that the left seems to reserve its most vitriolic criticism for women conservatives?”
Actually, the most vitriolic criticism from the Left is reserved for African-American conservatives. Just ask Clarence Thomas. It’s for the same reason, though: liberals view conservative women and conservative blacks as traitors to their race and sex.
“I thought at the time that the localization of crosshair imagery onto particular districts and named candidates crossed a line it was indecent to cross.”
Link rerun:
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=13647
I suppose the Democrats who did the same thing as Palin also crossed that indecent line?
This is not just tu quoque: the claim is being made that the violent imagery is only from the right. That is demonstrably untrue.
OK, now this is getting really warped:
“Towards the end of an otherwise thoughtful town hall, there was a single incident: James Eric Fuller, who was shot at the Safeway last week, allegedly made a threatening comment to another audience member, Tucson Tea Party co-founder Trent Humphries. It is unclear whether Humphries heard Fuller and the two never engaged. According to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, Fuller used a cell phone to take a picture of Humphries and allegedly said, “You’re dead.”
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/tragedy-american-conversation-continued/story?id=12624027&page=2
So, one of the shooting victims has threatened a Tea Party founder who obviously was not even aware of the confrontation. Is there any doubt that Fuller was inspired to this violent act by the intemperate and false denunciation of the Tea Party for the actions of the mass murderer?
“Do you include Democrat Senate candidate (and winner) Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who, quite literally, shot a bullet through the Cap and Trade bill with a rifle in his most often run campaign ad?”
I thought Manchin was stupid and reckless in his efforts to prove his bona fides as a conservative Democrat. It was embarrassing and unfortunate. At the same time, I think the use of cross-hair imagery and the firing of guns at hypothetical, if unspecified, human targets is qualitatively different from what Manchin did, I am more than willing to concede that Manchin’s ad contributes to the problem I wring my hands about. Can I assume that Manchin’s act bothers you, too, or only the existence of a double standard on the part of inconsistent lefties?
“I thought at the time that the localization of crosshair imagery onto particular districts and named candidates crossed a line it was indecent to cross.”
Link rerun:
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=13647
I suppose the Democrats who did the same thing as Palin also crossed that indecent line?”
The site you link to opines that it is splitting hairs to distinguish archery bulls-eye symbols targeting potentially winnable states in a Presidential election with electoral votes from rifle scope sights targeting specific congressional candidates who voted a certain way on the health care bill. I submit that the difference between these two graphic representations is a profound one. I do not think the comparison and, thus, evidence of double standard is apt. The specifically graphic and suggestive aspects of cross-hair imagery applied to twenty named persons holding congressional seats crosses a line because it symbolically points a gun at the person. Why? Because the scope represents the perspective of a shooter in the act of shooting in a way that a target motif on its own does not. (Does anyone think that the target logo of Target stores is violent?)
If fair play demands I agree that violent imagery is not just from the right, I hereby do so. A bulls-eye graphic is violent, if minimally so in certain deployments. If I ever claimed that “the violent imagery is only from the right,” I retract it, though I’m not sure I did. What I did say was that the use of gun-specific visual rhetoric in various ways was a viral meme on the right during this past election, not a isolated image here or stunt there but a strategic (if not ncessarily coordinated by a central bureau) use of gun rhetoric that defined the right-most wing of the Republican party in 2010.
Ann,
Because they’re not conservatives.
Jean -
As to point 1 – no one else had a gun, that’s why. I can find you dozens of examples where lawful gun owners stopped this kind of violence.
Point 2 – Again, I am not saying anyone is “blaming” Palin in an ultimate sense, but that they are claiming she contributed to some sort of violent “atmoshpere.” You do so yourself. I simply say that is a canard. No reasonable persone really believes this. It is a narrative to fit some sort of stereotype of flannel shirt wearing rednecks storing up ammunition for the comming right wing revolution. It’s silly, and I have enough respect for the intelligence of the ones complaining to think they don’t really believe it. Maybe I am wrong.
Point 3 – Like I said, we don’t have students throwing molotov cocktails and turning over cars. At least for political reasons – we might not be so lucky if the Jets win tonight. For all the handwringing about our “atmosphere” there is no evidence that violence is a problem. Moreover, the people making the complaints need to open a history book – this “climate” is nothing new, and happens again and again in American history, and it isn’t dangerous.
Point 4 – Right back at you – where are the “studies” showing the rhetoric of the Tea Party, Palin et al have any effect vis a vis violence. In any event, I was speaking from personal experience, and I will just say I heard things come out of the mouths of well educated Europeans on political topics, and for that reason racial and ethnic matters, regarding violence and personal insults that I would never hear in the US.
Point 5 – Again, I said conservatives. I am sorry, but I have found liberals far more nasty to women politicians than conservatives are, and it isn’t because of Palin’s brain power or lack there of. You destroyed your own during the primary season. I think you would see different treatment if Palin wasn’t a woman.
“Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly”
Would someone analyze for me the rhetoric of this invitation to attend a campaign event for Kelly, Giffords Tea Party and Palin-backed opponent. I am not so foolish to believe that Kelly wanted Giffords dead and intended his message to be an incitement to assassination.
But what is the message? For what audience is this effective rhetoric? What is the strategy behind this rhetorical appeal? And could someone tell me how this message functions to advance democratic and republican values?
Sean,
Point 1: You miss my overall point. I have no problem with people owning guns. I think it would be prudent to require gun owners to prove they know basic gun operation and safety, as young drivers do when they get their licenses. I’m sure there are cases of people defending their families with guns. The Tuscon shootings wasn’t one such instance, yet there was nothing in Arizona law to have prevented it. Just observing the irony of it, not making any point for or against guns.
Point 2 – Palin’s rhetoric is, in my view, entirely unrelated to the shootings. But you seem to WANT me to have said it. I will say that I believe she frames issues in way designed to appeal to gut rather than head. Her use of the word “death panel,” for instance.
Point 3 – We have had students throwing molotov cocktails and turning over cars, and forming up violent groups during the 1960s. They used rhetoric similar to but far more incendiary than the guns-n-ammo talk you hear from Sarah Palin (example, “The Anarchist Cookook”). Conservatives did their best to deplore this rhetoric and J. Edgar Hoover, arguably a conservative, investigated many of these people because he felt their rhetoric was a danger. Ironic that if liberals even suggest that Palin’s rhetoric is out of line puts you in high dudgeon.
Point 4 – I merely said it was not inconceivable to me that many people DO look to violent rhetoric and wonder whether it causes violence (see point 3). Moreover, you are merely using personal anecdotes to say that educated Europeans are meaner than Americans. As you say, this is just your personal experience. It is not presenting fact, which you is what we should use when we argue.
Point 5 – If Olympia Snow, Barbara Bush, and Sandra Day O’Connor are not conservatives, then what are they? SDo’C worked and voted for Barry Goldwater. Again, you are relying only on your own perceptions rather than on facts. Apparently, we differ in our definition of “conservative,” and since you say these ladies are NOT conservatives, the burden to define “conservative” is on you.
I’m happy to go on if you stop trying to pass your own experiences and perceptions off as the facts you believe we should stick to when we argue.
Best,
Jean
Sean’s Point 5:
I have to agree that liberals can be horrible to liberal women. In 2008 Hillary failed to drop out of the primaries when Obama’s staff, supporters, and drooling media wanted her to. Instead, she reminded them that Bobby Kennedy was still campaigning in June when he was assassinated. They immediately began pretending that she was threatening Obama’s life with that reference.
I was puzzled to discover that various prominent Republican women were not conservative and for this reason not subject to vitriol from the left. I suppose there’s a gradient to be observed from moderate, or center right, or conservative, or further to the right, in both economic and social terms. It seems to me too tenacious a bramble to cut through to determine whose vitriol, applied to which person or type, is worse. But Sean’s comment reminded me that FDR was hated most on the right by those who felt he was a traitor to his class. Not unlike those who believe Justice Thomas “forgot” where he came from. The rhetoric against those one feels should be with you, but are not, always seems the nastiest.
Gerelyn, one example does not support a sweeping generalization that liberals are meaner to women conservatives than to men.
I did not support Hilary Clinton’s bid for the presidency because a) she set health care reform back by 20 years as first lady, b) she had very little political experience (I didn’t support Obama in the primary for that same reason), and c) I did not support her views about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Her “making cookies and stand by your man” remark galled me particularly on a visceral level. But that’s not the reason I didn’t support her, though I think it did sink her with a lot of people.
So, William F., I don’t quite see your point. FDR and Justice Thomas “forgot where they came from” so Hilary … what? She comes from a white, genteel Republican Midwest background.
“So, William F., I don’t quite see your point. FDR and Justice Thomas “forgot where they came from” so Hilary … what? She comes from a white, genteel Republican Midwest background.”
I was essentially agreeing with Sean that there is a special vial of bile reserved for those one concludes is a traitor to the tribe, however it may be defined. It’s not a liberal or a conservative thing, however. FRD and Justice Thomas are exemplars of that form of hatred in terms of class and race, respectively. Whatever animus has been directed against Hillary Clinton from various directions over the years seems not to be of that sort. It always seemed more tactical than deep in the bones, except among a group of Clinton haters on the left and the right.
Hi, Jean!
True that one example does not support a sweeping generalization.
The defensiveness by conservatives underlines The Truth of the obvious. Spreading the guilt is winning this particular duel. You do it too, is their battlecry, and liberals retreat. (Cenk’s column on that was taken down by Huffington.) (Even the Church uses it: we’re ALL guilty, so no one is guilty.)
Frank Rich is good this morning: “For macabre absurdity, it would seem hard to top Newt Gingrich, who wailed about leftists linking Loughner to the right as if he had not famously blamed a psychotic double-murder of 1994, Susan Smith’s drowning of her two sons in South Carolina, on ‘Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.’”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/opinion/16rich.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
Cenk: http://www.theyoungturks.com/story/2011/1/11/121621/205/Diary/Was-Jared-Loughner-s-Act-Political-
“If fair play demands I agree that violent imagery is not just from the right, I hereby do so.”
Alright, WIlliam. But then you go on to claim that it is only the violent imagery from the RIGHT (and not that from the Left) which mattered in terms of fostering a so-called environment of violence:
“…the use of gun-specific visual rhetoric in various ways was a viral meme on the right during this past election, not a isolated image here or stunt there but a strategic (if not ncessarily coordinated by a central bureau) use of gun rhetoric that defined the right-most wing of the Republican party in 2010.”
Your distinction between generic “targets” and rifle sight “bull’s eyes” is well taken. But surely you agree that left-winger Daily Kos’s “bull’s eyes” targeting, among others, Giffords herself, contributed to an environment of violence?
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Daily-Kos-Bullseyed-Giffords/2011/01/10/id/382350
“Alright, WIlliam. But then you go on to claim that it is only the violent imagery from the RIGHT (and not that from the Left) which mattered in terms of fostering a so-called environment of violence”
I do indeed, if such things are measured by intensity and thematic clustering. These acts of symbolic violence with guns using verbal, visual, and tactile motifs of gun wielding as political engagement were a phenomenon of the right-most wing of the Republican party in 2010, notwithstanding a Manchin ad here or a Kos posting there. I do not excuse violent imagery on their part. Manchin’s visceral act of violence was egregious, especially in its craven capitulation to the dominant rhetorical tropes of the election cycle. Kos’ rhetoric is implicitly violent in its word choice. However, it pales in comparison with the calculated use of “reload” combined with the imagery of rifle scopes combined with the photographs of candidates bearing military-issue machine gun combined with the opportunity for political supporters to attend rallies where they can fire off and in so doing symbolically shoot the opposition with military-issue machine guns combined with the opportunity, as in Florida, to aim at a target with initials DWS when the candidate one is looking to defeat is Deborah Wasserman Schultz combined with language by actual candidates about second amendment remedies combined with rhetoric linking ballots with bullets combined with t-shirts saying “I came unarmed, this time” combined with events marked by the bringing of guns to political rallies as a statement of some sort.
All of this above is evidence of an emergent political culture that is defining itself through violent tropes and flirting at the level of fantasy and wish-fulfillment with assassination as a means.It may be political theatre, but it is irresponsible. It’s an unhealthy rhetoric that people of good sense and decency should put a stop to by calling a foul and exhorting others to clean up their act.
I reject as a false equivalency any claims remotely resembling parity between the parties and their various movements in the present historical moment. The violent rhetoric is asymmetric in the extreme. A Kos’ bulls-eye does not an environment make, even if it contributes in its small way to an escalation. In 2010 you had serious candidates for office engaging in this kind of behavior.
The attempted assassination of Representative Giffords and the murder of six others gives us ALL an opportunity to examine our rhetoric and take responsibility for the tracks our language choices are setting down. I say it’s time for everyone to whom the charge applies to clean up their act.
On misogyny: Is it possible that different women are disliked for different reasons and that the dislike may rise to the level of vitriol for different reasons. And that women with views similar to those who are heartily disliked hardly make a ripple on the vitriol radar screen.
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R.-TX), about to retire, doesn’t seem to be on the vitriol charts though she seems to me to be quite conservative–as conservative as Palin or Bachman, I don’t know.
Barbara Mikulski (D.-MD) is as liberal if not more so than Nancy Pelosi, but doesn’t seem to raise national hackles.
The two examples are not wholly parallel, but my point: Pelosi and Palin may be heartily disliked for completely different reasons.
And truth in advertising: I was never a fan of Hillary Clinton though I voted for her in the New York primary, just as I am not a fan of our two current Senators; Chuck Schumer seems to me a bully and a grandstander whose votes on the financial front in the bubble-era were as reprehensible as his Republican colleagues. Since I am a member of the lesser of two evils political caucus, I nonetheless find myself voting for people who I don’t like.
At an earlier point in this thread I opined that there was an element of misogyny in the animus and act of aggression against Rep. Giffords, in other words, that her gender became a not insignificant element of the rage within the shooter that narrowed onto her as a specific target. There is nothing especially political about that, of course, and none of us are in a position to account for what led Loughner to choose Giffords as a target over other people he might have singled out. I think many of our reactions to the events of last week are filtered through dynamics of gender in any case.
Here’s what I’m wondering: the two Republican candidates who used the shooting of guns at a target as a campaign event were both running against women. One candidate, Robert Lowry, (running against Debbie Wasserman Schultz) is reported to have marked the target with the initials DWS that he proceeded to shoot at. Am I wrong to think there’s some kind of latent misogyny–beyond mere callousness and indecency–in such actions?
I am not aware of these target shooting events having occurred in districts where men were running against men. Perhaps they did. Do men, even today, have some additional obligation rooted in respect or gallantry to avoid even the appearance of intimation or violence against women?
The NYT article about Loughner this morning made it clear that he had problems with women in power. (Among many other issues.) The bank tellers would put their fingers on the panic button when he walked in. And the woman who tattooed the second bullet on him said something about his Columbine potential.
Bill Kurtis on Howard Kurtz this morning said his son’s schizophrenia kicked in at age 19, apparently the time it often happens.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/us/16loughner.html?hp
Again, I think that psychoanalysis of Loughner’s state of mind is better left alone by the media and their armchair diagnosticians, to say nothing of the rest of us.
Mentally ill people have a hard enough time without being seen as possible violent perps.
Moreover, Arizona is a death penalty state, and the excessive coverage of Loughner’s mental state, in my view, could jeopardize his right to a fair trial.
I don’t see anything inherently misogynistic in campaign ads against women. If there is, it isn’t working; the women mentioned got elected.
“take responsibility for the tracks our language choices are setting down”
As Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer said in 2001 after another act of violence: “Americans need to watch what they say.” You’re with him on that, then?
Actually, what the Left is proposing now is far worse than Fleischer, because what the Left is proposing now is the censoring (whether legally or via self-censorship, same result) of specifically political speech. Such a suggestion is far more dangerous to America than half a dozen Loughners with semi-automatics.
I am with Ari on that as a democratic principle. Responsible rhetoric that takes as its measure prudence, respect and decency, even when one must be prodded into it, is no dangerous act of censorship. It’s simply being decent, prudent and responsible–the requirements for discourse in any healthy commonwealth. It’s also known as the Golden Rule.
Were there not such checks against words and actions that would shame us in the eyes of our parents, our teachers, or our children we might all descend to boorish or thuggish in the conviction of our own righteousness. We should always be asking that God be in our speaking and in our collective labor to create a peaceable kingdom.
Sometimes that means refraining from exercising one’s freedom to act boorishly, and make of your political opponent an excuse for target shooting. As the great conservative rhetorical scholar Richard Weaver, famously observed, “ideas have consequences.” And he also wrote two other works apropos of our conversation: The Ethics of Rhetoric and Language is Sermonic.
This “responsible rhetoric” trope is merely an attempt to gain an edge in the political arena by suppressing conservative voices, one way or another. It’s the extra-legal version of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine”, intended not to suppress all boorish speech, but only boorish speech from the Right. The baseless rush to condemn talk radio immediately following the shootings proved that at the very beginning.
Perhaps one has to ask what is causing the incremental advance in violent motifs represented by weaponry in the culture at large, in political discourse, and within certain sub-groups of political parties. And ask what would cause that strain to run its course and exit the body politic.
It would seem that the rightmost wing of the political spectrum still within the bounds of publicly acceptable ideology and discourse finds advantage in employing gun rhetoric. Perhaps events on the ground in Tucson will have shifted the calculus so that we won’t see so much of this material I have deplored. I’m quite certain no candidate for Rep. Giffords’ district in 2012 will be photographed holding an M-16 in their campaign literature.