h/t Matt from Mississauga
Update: A common tactic of Leftist trolls like this one is to say something like “there are extremists on both sides but I’ve never seen or heard any major pundits on the Left say anything outrageous”. How is it that this past week one could conveniently ignore Krugman, Moulitsas, Olbermann, Matthews, Dionne, Clinton, and the entire NY Times Editorial staff? This is the true “Climate of Hate” in our culture. But this tiny sampling of examples from this past week is but a mere drop in the bucket of what has happened in the past.
Dear Trolls of the Left, please continue to post your arguments on here but do stick to the facts. We insist upon it!
jay forbes makes the outrageous statement:
A crosshairs has one purpose only – to use when killing animals, if you’re a hunter. Or people, if you’re an assassin.
That’s quite a sweeping statement and totally wrong. A crosshairs icon is used as a means of precisely selecting a particular point visually. I have a crosshairs icon in a program which is used to digitize images of graphs – no-one has died as a result of my using this crosshairs symbol. I had a laser cross hairs projected on my body when I had a CT scan and am still here to talk about it. I won’t spend the effort to include all of the other non-lethal uses of crosshairs as a single counterexample is sufficient to disprove the preposterous assertion made.
Or people, if you’re an assassin.
~jay forbes
How about “Or people, if you’re defending yourself and your loved ones”?
You think that people have never defended themselves and their loved ones with scoped or optical sights on firearms?
You know nothing about history if you think that.
I pray that Gabby Giffords heals well and quickly.
I know she’s a woman of honor and a gun advocate.
She’ll put this drivel that people like you are spewing about Sarah Palin to rest permanently when she’s up and around.
Shame on you, jay forbes.
If one wants to make the argument that political rhetoric and the use of metaphors is a bad thing, then argue that point.
If one wants to make the argument that this shooting rampage was a result of political rhetoric and the use of metaphors then show how they are connected.
In fact, the history of this shooter and Rep. Gifford begins back in 2007. Did anyone outside of Alaska even know of Governor Palin then?
Facts and data folks.
How can dots be connected when there are no dots?
jay forbes, the only explanation that accounts for the evidence, is that you hate Palin.
jay forbes, “a crosshairs has one purposr only”
Google crosshairs: a few definitiions and ads aimed squarely at law-enforcement agencies. And then “Hundreds of replacement crosshairs for your favorite action games like Quake 2 Quake 3, Half-Life, Kingpin, Counter Strike, …”
Loughlin never heard of Palin, but he was an avid gamer. You watch too much tv.
Any troll who rants on and on about “crosshairs” on Palin’s map, but completely ignores the Democrat map with bulls-eye targets on Republican states and words like “behind enemy lines” and “ripe targets”, as well as the left-wing Daily Kos map with a bulls-eye on Giffords district (I suppose because she wasn’t left-wing enough), quite simply has no credibility. None.
jay forbes – the problem with your attempt to link Palin’s crosshair’s map to Loughner’s act, is that to make this connection, you have to provide evidence.
Evidence:
that Loughner saw the map;
that he, alone of the millions who also saw the map, viewed it as a ‘permission-to-kill’;
Can you provide us with that evidence?
Next, if you want people to take your opinions seriously, you need to move out of the invalid semantics of trying to have us accept that an ‘outrageous statement’ cannot also be a statement that libels or slanders. Think.
The word ‘outrageous’ is an adjective; it can be used to define a statement that in actual fact, does libel/slander (these are verbs) someone.
So, when someone like Paul Krugman (or you!) declares that Palin’s rhetoric incites people to violence, or that her ‘map’ is a call-to-violence, well, that’s libel. Got it?
Speaking of right wing violent imagary, didn’t the cons post a picture on their website of Harper being executed? Opps nope that twas the leftwing Liberals.
I learned at least one thing when my children were toddlers. It’s no use providing facts or using logic: toddlers can’t process them or remember them.
So did the CBC only let Rex rant if he allowed pictures of Beck and BOR? I don’t understand why?
I don’t watch or listen to BOR. But Beck all week on his radio program basically was saying the same thing Rex said. Although not using the big words…
Other than that Bravo, Rex!
I forgot. I disagree with Rex that partisanship started with Clinton. Fiery political rhetoric has been a mainstay in US politics since the very beginning of the country.
Anyone can google Presidential election of 1828 and coffin handbills to see proof of that…
I wonder what Kneel McDonald of cbc ‘fame’ thot of Rex’s rant? He has been one of the more outrageous commentators on this.
BTW,another cbc genius,Nancy uh-uh,Wilson uh uh,just stated this am,that the words of the Short People song by Randy Newman ‘could constitute a hate-crime!’ Are you kidding me???
The problem as I see it is willful ignorance. The Palin map used US Geological markings, not gun sights. The truth did not change the rant. That is the problem, facts have become irrelevant. What you may believe is the truth mindless of the facts.
The AGW banked on it and the political powers bank on it.
It’s an old trick, if you are really PO’d you aren’t supposed to notice the bad government you have. Parties to the left seem to do better at this than parties that actually try to fix problems instead of sell an ideology.
Had years of a Prov. NDP. Always we/they and still is. Now we have Brad Wall. He isn’t perfect but he is a lot more positive and we are way better off.
I don’t want parties that redistribute my wealth (haha) but creates more wealth for all.
Any troll who rants on and on about “crosshairs” on Palin’s map, but completely ignores the Democrat map with bulls-eye targets on Republican states and words like “behind enemy lines” and “ripe targets”, as well as the left-wing Daily Kos map with a bulls-eye on Giffords district (I suppose because she wasn’t left-wing enough), quite simply has no credibility. None.
Posted by: ann at January 15, 2011 8:39 AM
Exactly right, ann. Zero.
AND, as lookout points out, you don’t point out facts to toddlers. And that’s what lefties are — toddlers, emotion junkies, fantasy-land dwellers, arrested adolescents.
This is why I NEVER respond to people like our troll Jay Forbes who is unserious.
Question: am I right in thinking that Mark Steyn offered no commentary on this issue? If so, now there’s a man even wiser than I thought!
Lest we forget Scott Reid (Nov 29, 2008):
“This becomes relevant because suddenly, he is weak. In fact, at this particular moment, he is almost unable to defend himself. Owing to a ridiculously ill-considered act of hubris, he has laid himself vulnerable to his opponents. Their imperative could not be more clear: kill him. Kill him dead. Do not, whatever you do, provide him with an opportunity to extend his hold on power. Because you can be damn certain he will never again be so reckless as to give you a chance to finish him off.”
jay forbes makes the outrageous statement:
A crosshairs has one purpose only – to use when killing animals, if you’re a hunter. Or people, if you’re an assassin.
Outrageous and ignorant, as a optical surveyor, all my instruments had cross – hairs and sights. The distamats, theodolites, compasses, range- finders and hand- held GPS.
Today, I use a mapping program, OZiexplor. When loading and calibrating a new map file, cross – hairs and the exact target symbols Sarah Palin used are incorporated in the process. Cross – hairs, sights and targets are the fundamental tools of survey, land position, not only for assassins and killers.
Where are all the “A” level trolls? A bit of a slap in the face that the best that SDA is getting sent is this jay forbes fellow. The ranks must be gettin a bit thin.
No, jay forbes, you are still evading the issue.
First – don’t move into ad hominem against anyone who criticizes you. Focus only on the criticism.
You haven’t pointed out ‘facts’. You haven’t pointed out ‘some of her actions’. That’s the problem. You have evaluated Palin and provided your ‘opinion’ and that’s a subjective view confined to you. Just you.
So, your opinion is that Palin’s ‘reckless use of violent imagery’ had ‘violent consequences. None of this is factual; all of it is subjective speculation. This includes your use of the terms: reckless and violent.
You’ve been asked repeatedly to define those terms; after all – you used them. You haven’t done so. What was reckless and/or violent in Palin’s words and actions?
You’ve been asked to explain how you can link Palin’s images (eg of crosshairs) to Loughner. You haven’t done so.
You’ve been asked to explain why a media pundit such as Krugman, the NTY and so on, who linked Loughner to Palin were not engaged in libel. You haven’t done so.
Again, stick to the factual issues. Don’t move into ad hominem towards anyone who criticizes your comments. That’s evading the criticism. Face that criticism and deal with it.
Jay Forbes is nothing but a leftist clone and a fool. Why dignify him with logical arguments when all that’ he deserves is to be told to ‘piss off’.
You cannot win an argument with a drunk or a dedicated leftist. They think the same way.
Jay’s parroting the CHRC assertion that “Hateful words lead to hateful actions” but only I repeat only if said hateful words are spoken by a rightwinger.
Jay Forbes has garnered enough troll food on this thread to last him a month.
We have two competing narratives in our culture right now, one of which is being slowly crushed by the other. The one being crushed is the Left, the reason they are being crushed now is that a critical mass of people have finally figured out what it is they are really up to.
An entire media industry, Talk Radio, has grown up in the last 20 years which consists solely of pointing at the Left and laughing. The blogosphere is the same, bloggers pretty much spend their time pointing and laughing, there’s that much to laugh at.
That’s why all the screaming. Its the Lefties last desperate try at demonizing their legitimate opponents before they start in on the violent crowd tactics. No other reason.
So it is utterly, completely pointless to engage the likes of Jay Forbes in a reasoned argument. He’s an agent provocateur whose aim is to upset, distract and dismay. You can tell by the way he changes the subject every time a hole gets punched in his blather.
Rex Murphy is stating the OBVIOUS, so the trolls really can’t do anything other than fling poo and hope we all chase them into the woods.
Hey Jay:
If a target is so offensive, we better get to work on the gazzillion ice rinks and curling rinks across Canada. Lets also get the term “he shoots, he scores” banned for being too offensive and dangerous.
The drunk might eventually sober up.
So now the conversation has degenerated into one side said/did this,- the other side was worse.
In fact, all the issues in the finger pointing has nothing, NOTHING to do with the actual event.
I am aghast at the foolishness.
Why is nobody thinking about what could have been done to prevent this horrific event?
Why is nobody asking what was the interaction between the police and this shooter? (Did I hear correctly that there were death threats?)Was there something that fell through the cracks here?
I have lost track of the number of well-educated people (who obviously never took a course in logic) who say yes , it is obvious that political discourse played no part in this massacre, – BUT we have to lower the level of vitriol,- all the while slandering talk radio, Sarah Palin, and anyone else who has ever disagreed with the Liberal viewpoint.
People died. Does anyone care? Its seems only to the degree where someone can be damaged.
I am disgusted, and more than a little fearful for humankind.
ward at 12:41 PM: Ward, there’s probably only one or two of them, posting under various names.
The Phantom at 1:56 PM: “Jay Forbes has garnered enough troll food on this thread to last him a month.
We have two competing narratives in our culture right now, one of which is being slowly crushed by the other.”
Exactly, and feeding them isn’t helping. And I know I’m guilty of it myself.
Issues such as this, trying to claim the “See, I told you those type of images would cause trouble”, is akin to the broken clock rule….
A broken clock is still right, twice a day.
The other rule playing out in this scenario, and completely over the heads of the left is:
Exceptions don’t prove the rule.
From a mathematical point of view, the Giffords event is an ‘outlier’, and not a repetitive, ongoing event which proves a rule.
It is the exception, and that is what is the most distasteful and ignorant perspective from the leftists that pervade. Its their ignorance and arrogance, to take advantage of a crisis, that is crass and craven
They can’t accept that there are crazy people. They believe everybody can be fixed, regardless of issues……
Well, Lee, I don’t quite get your take that “. . . nobody [is] thinking . . . asking . . . does anyone care?” I’m not sure why you’re asking these questions at SDA.
People here have been questioning the Democratic sheriff’s political grandstanding, which seems more important to him than protecting the public; we’ve noted that even a deranged individual’s civil rights are now so sacrosanct that they trump the safety of other citizens; we’ve deplored the “memorial service”, which aggrandized the president and demeaned the memories and lives of those killed and wounded; we don’t have much of a problem with either the Democrats or Republicans using metaphorical targets for their political opponents; we truly don’t believe that it was political rhetoric which caused the tragedy: that’s the left’s fairy tale.
So, I think your concern must be with certain others, who cast their nets around here, rather than with the regulars at SDA because, like you, I believe that most of us are “disgusted [by the left’s astonishing vitriol and hypocrisy] and more than a little fearful for humankind”. Lee, if what you say is what you mean, you’re preaching to the choir.
lookout, sorry i wasnt more clear.
Of course i was not railing at readers or commenters here.
My angst is directed at those in the States who either shape opinion, make laws, or enforce laws.
So jay, how about telling us where in this video Loughner says anything that supports your views?
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/310787.php
Because conservatives always bitch about low income, two illegal wars, are worried about becoming homeless, police “shaboozy” etc. so how about taking DrewM’s challenge?
The “progressive” leftoids have always been out to lunch in their justification of their beliefs, but Jay seems to be the one ladling out the Koolaid in addition to drinking it.
Here in Canada, we had a fanatic on a Greyhound bus murder a man on a bus – ON a bus!! There were many people on that bus but the fanatic was still enabled to cut the mans head off and throw it around like a football….and a policeman with a gun did not shoot the defiler. The fanatic is now in the care of the tender loving hands of state “rehab”. I still register revulsion and horror every-time I think about that ghastly incident on the greyhound bus. It was just as egregious as the shooting in Tucson; ANY drive by shooting is as revolting as this incident in Tucson. The bus incident still haunts me in a darker more sinister way because the bus butchering was horror – it was raw brutality and a negation of decency. This was ‘allowed’ to happen, in Canada, because the mindset of Canadian people is that of throwing up their little hands and squealing “Do something…somebody!!” What about us – why do we not do something for ourselves? Because if someone had done ‘something’ like throttle that monster on the bus, that brave person would have been drawn and quartered by our irresponsible media and the fanatic would have become the victim (because of that fanatic’s religion). The same has happened in the USA because the USA has elected a very irresponsible Commander and Chief who has hired a gang of thugs to help him disarm the integrity of the American people. The killer is still alive, innocent people are dead and wounded, and the msm, right on cue, attacks anyone who feels rage against the killer – because that killer robbed innocent people of the presence of people that they had loved. It was not about WHO was killed, it was about HOW they were killed. Those people were killed by a piece of quivering blubber and that waste of flesh is still alive!! There was no war and the killer did not have any motivation to kill the people that he murdered; he just did it because he could..and he is still alive. I feel outrage at this and people who have ever loved anyone all feel justified outrage.
I have seen hate and the horror of killing and butchering on TV (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes to mind) and in video games and in footage from the newsmedia. The violence of these ‘games’ and ‘media’ are designed to fascinate not to inform. ‘Sargent York’, ‘Gone With The Wind’, “Dr. Zhivago” etc. were filled with horrific scenes but they were designed to teach a lesson. The war shows of the past warned people of the consequences of conquest by people who hate, the morbid horrors of butchering and gutting of today twist young minds with the idea that people are ‘things’ without feeling or value. Here in Canada people allow other people to kill unborn people on a massive scale because they have been told that those little people do not have any value and that they have no perception or feeling. Hitler convinced the German people that Jewish people, Romanians, homosexuals….had no value and hence could be butchered without consequence, these people who were murdered were German citizens who paid taxes. The Jewish German citizens were murdered by their next door neighbours!! Just the same as the people in Tucson were murdered by a fellow Arizona citizen. This was close to home and the msm churned every sane person’s stomach by blaming news commentators who support punishing the murderer. People like Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and O’Rielly (pictured in Rex’s video on the same screen with the malicious self righteous Matthews, Stewert etc)came to the defense of people who were outraged. President O. pontified but he never gave the outraged people vindication by condemning the murderer and his ilk (Ft. Hood murder is that ilk with C. Manson, Billy Ayers, Lee Harvy Oswald…the murderers in Mexican Drug gangs). As a victim of a hit and run driver, I know the outrage. Someone ran over me when I was 21 and left me mangled in a ditch to die. I was ‘lucky’ some decent men who worked for the CNR stopped and kept me alive until my Mom and Dad and an ambulance arrived. I lived but people would not allow me to express my outrage; they just kept telling me how ‘lucky’ I was to be alive. ‘Lucky’, I would think; that criminal who ran over me is lucky because if I ever find out who he/she is they will be sorry…is that hate or is that a cry for Justice? I have never even had the satisfaction of finding out if their was a motive (which would make me feel better because a motive would elevate me from the ‘without value’ category).
When it is personal, it is different…and the ‘hush, hushers’ are inciting the festering of outrage. Do they understand that?
It has been shown that the murderer did not listen to radio or follow politics. He did, however, listen to punk rock bands and watch certain movies. Why aren’t those people who blamed political speech now blaming artists? If political speech could push him over the edge, then they should blame the artists instead.
ET:
“So, your opinion is that Palin’s ‘reckless use of violent imagery’ had ‘violent consequences.”
No. I’ve never stated that. There is no quote here stating that that’s my opinion.
I did quote Giffords’ stating that Palin’s image of crosshairs on a poster could have consequences. But I have never said that it did have violent consequences.
Why are you insisting on an untruth?
Jema, it is good that you bring up the Greyhound bus affair.
The people on the spot in Arizona tackled the shooter -while he was still shooting-. They didn’t run and hide, they ATTACKED him, took him down and I hope pounded him. People with guns ran TOWARD the sound of shooting. If the unarmed people who tackled the shooter had failed, the armed ones would have taken Laughner down.
Canadians let a lunatic cut a guy’s head off and start in eating it. For HOURS.
Let’s hear again from the trolls how horrible Americans are, shall we? Come on boys, come up with something clever.
Oh dear. I appear to have stunned the trolls into silence.
…
So, how about those Leafs eh?
Troll
Are you insisting that Giffords had ESP?
If so, why didn’t she change her event time or place, if she knew it would happen?
Please revert back to my previous post….it’s about the broken clock and applies perfectly here.
You are purposely ignoring the facts here, to make a cheap, and hollow point, almost as if you are revelling in the tragedy. How appropriate!
Try reading a little more and you might find out that the POS “did not watch TV, was not left or right, did not listen to talk radio”, and was a fan of Giffords.
In short, he was nuts, and your corollary has been thoroughly destroyed.
Now, back to your abutment.
jay forbes – be accountable.
YOU quoted Gifford. Why? To accept or reject her statement? I presume that it was to accept it.
Then, to try to run from accountability and merely say that ‘violent images have consequences’ is …well, that’s cowardly. Why did you refer to this sentence?
What kind of consequences? Similar-to-the-image, i.e., violent? Or dissimilar-to-the-image, i.e., non-violent? Which is it. Both? Neither?
You used the phrase. Be accountable for your use. Or were you just randomly putting in sentences and didn’t want the reader to get any meaning from them?
jay – yoo hoo. You are still evading the issue.
WHY is the statement that ‘violent images have consequences’ ‘relevant and newsworthy’? It isn’t the point that Gifford, not you said it. YOU referenced it! Why?
You wrote about Gifford’s statement: “To draw attention to Giffords’ own statements that Palin’s violent imagery was over the top is not ‘libel or ‘slander’. It’s an entirely relevant part of the context for an attempted assassination” Ahh- what does this mean? That the violent imagery was related to ‘an attempted assassination’? To suggest that there was a link – is libellous, for no such link can be established.
You still haven’t explained WHY you referenced it. You’ve been asked repeatedly for such an explanation. And yet – silence and red herrings.
Oh – and to run and hide further in semantics of : it COULD have consequences versus it DID have consequences – is trivia and a red herring. Why reference it at all then, if you so rapidly disengage yourself from its meaning?
That’s a refusal to be accountable. That’s cowardly. Cheers.
Surprise surprise.
This morning the MSM are issuing the new talking point.
Crisis in mental health care.
The government must do something about the lack of proper “mental” health care they chime in unison. That the government must be able to commit those that are deemed a danger they read on cue.
Obviously they aren’t letting this crisis go to waste.
gimbol – the msm must have received a midnight memo – they were spinning their wheels and ‘somebody’ did not like the way things were spinning out – too many facts were derailing the agenda err, story, line, I guess.
Jay Forbes makes the claim, “A crosshairs has one purpose only – to use when killing animals, if you’re a hunter. Or people, if you’re an assassin.”
I can think of non-firearm applications of crosshairs:
1. Camera view-finders
2. Aiming mechanisms for X-Ray machines
3. Surveying equipment
4. Spots on a map to indicate areas of focus or attention
As I’ve said before, I wonder why the other Democrats on the 2010 Palin map aren’t under special guard these days: after what happened in Tucson, they must be in particular danger.
Ditto, the Republican politicians targeted—with colourful bulls eyes—on the Democrats’ 2004 map, entitled “BEHIND ENEMY LINES”.
And Bush is still alive, even after at least two lefty films portrayed his assassination.
What’s (not) going on here?