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The Tea Party Murders
Politico ^ | January 9, 2011 | George Lakoff

Posted on 01/09/2011 11:42:35 AM PST by Second Amendment First

Language has an effect. Violent political encounters have an effect. The link of the use of guns with patriotism and morality has an effect. Expressions like "targeting" and "in the crosshairs" evokes images of shooting to kill. The murder of a liberal leader in Pakistan seemed far away. Now it's here days later. Given all the death threats, it was almost inevitable. Gabby Giffords was in the crosshairs.

Republicans will say it was just the work of some crazy. Hardly. Even crazies get their ideas from somewhere. Violent political encounters and the language of violence activate the idea of violence. Ideas are physically there in the brain. People act on what is in their brains.

Keith Olbermann is right. And it's not just Palin and Beck. The Republicans who benefited from violent political confrontations and cross-hair language, who did not speak out and use their influence forcefully against it, bear full responsibility. Whatever John Boehner now says, he bears responsibility.

The tea party leaders gave explicit instructions on how to angrily disrupt public political meetings. Tea party rallies not only displayed violent signs, but rally leaders did not discourage them, and hence tacitly approved them.

As conservatives like to say, you bear the responsibility for the consequences of your actions.

This was tea party murder.

We should not shrink from calling it that.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: berkeley; completebs; giffords; lakoff; linguistics; rhodagoldman; rockridgeinstitute; teaparty; ucalifornia; wackos4obama
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To: Second Amendment First
The tea party leaders gave explicit instructions on how to angrily disrupt public political meetings. Tea party rallies not only displayed violent signs, but rally leaders did not discourage them, and hence tacitly approved them.

-ackoff, you have to be lying turd or you're dumber than a box of rocks to believe Laughner was influenced by the tea party, Palin, or Beck to shoot 18 people and a Congressman. You write nothing but idiotic drivel.

81 posted on 01/09/2011 12:31:01 PM PST by Red Steel
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To: Second Amendment First

George Lakoff...

“We progressives are long on factual analysis, critique, suggestion — and ridicule. Rachel Maddow is one of the best, and her popularity is well-deserved. What’s more fun than ridiculing Tea Party-ers, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the like, by showing the factual errors, the flaws in their logic, and the cruelty of their positions.”


82 posted on 01/09/2011 12:31:10 PM PST by kcvl
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To: Texas Eagle
Wow, reminiscent of “the whole world is watching”

Berkeley = ugly

The other was beautiful. I draw the conclusion (truth) that the left is ugly and the right is beautiful.

83 posted on 01/09/2011 12:35:14 PM PST by Cisco Nix (Real Conservatives stay sober and focused)
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To: CedarDave; pallis
Does the left think it is possible to preach hate without sending some leftnuts over the edge?

They want this. This is part of their strategy.

A free people has got to be a responsible people. Freedom doesn't work if a significant percentage of the population are irresponsible.

The left has hit on this as one of their strategies: break down everything in society, every societal construct, that helps to foster responsibility, to build responsible citizens and reward responsible citizenship. This is one of the things that's behind the dumping of millions of mental cases on the streets, to make mayhem along with millions of illiterate illegal immigrants from the third world.

Break down the will of society to say "this isn't right." Make the whole concept of "right and wrong" sound anachronistic, bigoted, an artificial construct of dead white men to perpetuate a discredited system of privledge and oppression.

When one of these benighted individuals finally goes bonkers with a gun, if the pieces of the situation fall into place the right way, the left is there, with the narrative already planned out, the whole machinery of deception and propaganda is prepared for instant action.

They couldn't do it with Amy Bishop, or Fort Hood, or the Virginia Tech massacre, for a number of reasons. But they could do it here, and they have.

84 posted on 01/09/2011 12:39:46 PM PST by Steely Tom (Obama goes on long after the thrill of Obama is gone)
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To: Second Amendment First

This guy’s a professor? He writes like a junior high schooler.


85 posted on 01/09/2011 12:41:57 PM PST by savedbygrace (But God.)
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To: exDemMom

Society was this guy’s enemy, not Gabrielle Gifford. She just happened to be a prominent figure in society. His choice of targets do not bely any sophisticated thought process which would serve one political ideology or he other, only a blind rage against a system that he was ill prepared to live in.


86 posted on 01/09/2011 12:42:16 PM PST by RC one (WHAT!!!!)
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To: Second Amendment First

Jakoff is from Bezerkely, so that explains a lot.
The Dems all have a favorite song: `Get Down With The Sickness’ (appropriately) by a band named `Disturbed.’
The shooter here was their soul-mate.
They can try and foist their problem off on the normal people of this country, but the problem for the Democrats can be found in their bathrooms, attached to the wall.


87 posted on 01/09/2011 12:43:14 PM PST by tumblindice (Henry Fonda won a Bronze Star, his daughter won our contempt)
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To: scbison

“I have this feeling when they search his computer, his favorite sites will be KOS, firedoglake, MoveOn etc.”

True, but you’ll never know unless you read the court transcript.


88 posted on 01/09/2011 12:43:58 PM PST by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: Second Amendment First
Let's blame Jon Stewart.

Yeah, Jon Stewart made him do it.

Perp is a twenty-something stoner, slacker, lives in mom's basement...that is the profile of the Daily Show audience.

I'll bet he's a fan of Stewart and Colbert...he's described as "arrogant" like the fake news guys.

If we dig, I'll bet we'll see a whole library of Daily Show clips on his computer.

89 posted on 01/09/2011 12:50:32 PM PST by Mamzelle
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To: kcvl

Why do all these liberal dipsh*ts look like Gerry Garcia wannabes?

What quality in their physical appearance makes the recognition of a liberal so easy?

Is it that most of them behave like bums?

Is it the wire-framed glasses, which they all prefer to wear low on their nose?

Is it their unshaven, unwashed disheveled appearance?

Perhaps it is that they so often speak and write as pretentious, arrogant and self-absorbed fools, that the habit somehow superimposes itself on their features?


90 posted on 01/09/2011 12:50:37 PM PST by TCH (DON'T BE AN "O-HOLE"! ... DEMAND YOUR STATE ENACT ITS SOVEREIGNTY !When a majority of the American)
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To: Second Amendment First

This is an outrage and we have had enough of lies from the left.


91 posted on 01/09/2011 12:52:00 PM PST by bmwcyle (It is Satan's fault)
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To: DGHoodini

Liberal parents made him mentally ill?

I suspect his little choo-choo would have gone chugging around the bend, even if Rush Limbaugh had raised him. I don’t think mental illness has an ideology.


92 posted on 01/09/2011 12:58:54 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (up)
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To: Eric Blair 2084

Well, yeah, come to think of it, liberalism does seem like a mental disorder, but I find it difficult to believe that each and every moonbat has a neurochemical imbalance, other than perhaps recreational, in his or her brain.


93 posted on 01/09/2011 1:02:30 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (up)
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To: Second Amendment First

Democrats have done the same thing. They just want to shut conservatives up.


94 posted on 01/09/2011 1:04:56 PM PST by popdonnelly (Your political opponents want you to shut up.)
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To: TCH
...that is really all they know how to do: they murder the unborn, they murder the elderly and the infirm, they murder innocence, and they murder freedom at every opportunity we allow.

The "kill your parents" generation is in control of the media. We parents are dead because that is what they want. They will continue to throw tantrums and scream obscenities at us until we let them have their "Socialist Utopia." I'm really tired and about ready to die already. The fight is going to have to go to the few brave patriots who are still willing to fight for America's freedom.

95 posted on 01/09/2011 1:07:13 PM PST by WVNan
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To: I am Richard Brandon

I believe that the several national TEA Party organizations must pursue a class-action lawsuit for defamation.

Individuals, such as this clown, who publish libelous screeds against the TEA Party, need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent that the law allows. This is a blood libel. This is a Tort. We do need to make an example of this fool. We need to make certain that the damages are set significantly high. If we fail to take legal action against this jerk, and any others that imitate his disgusting slander, then the defamation will never stop.


96 posted on 01/09/2011 1:07:31 PM PST by TCH (DON'T BE AN "O-HOLE"! ... DEMAND YOUR STATE ENACT ITS SOVEREIGNTY !When a majority of the American)
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To: Second Amendment First
This was tea party murder.

These "media" bastards have reached a new low... even for them.

97 posted on 01/09/2011 1:08:01 PM PST by ScottinVA (The West needs to act NOW to aggressively treat its metastasizing islaminoma!)
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To: Second Amendment First
This guy is off his rocker.

From just part of 2009 and this year:

2010

There is a lot more at This Web Site

The signs he says were there weren't there, and every tea party "leader" condemned and kicked every nutcase that showed up at any tea party rally.

Which was very seldom that they showed up..This article looks actionable to me, but I'm not a lawyer.

98 posted on 01/09/2011 1:12:43 PM PST by Syncro (Sarah Palin, the unofficial Tea Party candidate for president--Virtual Jerusalem)
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To: Syncro

Now, Syncro, see how many of these kinds of attacks can be attributed to the Tea Party or members. Should be quite a contract.


99 posted on 01/09/2011 1:24:32 PM PST by WVNan
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To: WVNan
LOL yea, and Pain's surveyor symbol is a crosshairs from a scope on a rifle.

But these targets that dems use are targets to shoot at. :

UPDATE: 302pm CST Daily Kos actually put a “bulls eye” (sic) on Gabrielle Giffords back in June of 2008:

Daily Kos targeted Gabrielle Giffords with a "bulls eye" back in June of 2008

Democrats use "bulls eye" targets extensively in their political graphics. This map shows states Democrats want targeted. Arizona, which Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords represents, is surrounded by these targets.


100 posted on 01/09/2011 1:31:05 PM PST by Syncro (Sarah Palin, the unofficial Tea Party candidate for president--Virtual Jerusalem)
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