Poll: 45% Say Politics Motivated Jared Loughner

Source: CBS

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20028218-503544.html



Updated 6:50 p.m. Eastern Time

Forty-five percent of Americans believe that Jared Loughner's political views were "probably" a factor in the shootings in Tucson Saturday, a new CBS News poll shows. One in three say they probably were not a factor, while 22 percent say they do not know.

Loughner has not cooperated with investigators in the wake of the shooting, and evidence suggests he held muddled political views far outside the mainstream. Many partisans have nonetheless tried to link the alleged shooter to the right or left.

The poll also shows that while three in four Americans say violence against the government is never justified, 16 percent say it can be justified -- the same percentage that said as much in April. Twenty-eight percent of Republicans said such violence can be justified, compared with 11 percent of Democrats and independents.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20028218-503544.html

Interesting.

They do what their parent companies and CEOs tell them.

Was "probably" an option or were they seeking a definite yes/no answer? If asked I would say "probably" but I'd hesitate to say outright "yes, it was", knowing that this guy seemed pretty mentally disturbed, and not knowing all the facts.

wow.

Depends on the circumstances

...

I am surprised that the number would be so low when asked of people in the US.

Seeing as our nation was founded upon the very principle of taking up arms against our oppressors:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government....

Then later in the document we make it clear that we assert the right to make war. And so we did.

There was an actual, correct answer to that question in 1776, and it was "yes, we do claim the right to take up arms against our government, if they're screwing us."

But I suppose one could argue that the Civil War decided that question differently four score and change years later.

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CNN was working at it feverishly this afternoon. Shrink /talking head who'd never met perp had him down as classical paranoid schizophrenic.

No politics involved , he insisted.

The more they *insist*, the less I believe them.

OK, not really surprised.

Not technically a lie though, the violent rhetoric wouldn't necessarily have to be political to incite action from a vulnerable mind. The fact that the virulence coming from certain corporate media happens to be political is no doubt purely coincidental.
:sarcasm:

There is evidence that he had some political interests. It's not clear that they were coherent or consistent enough to align him clearly with the left or the right.

I would hope that 100 percent would think that violence against a government *could* be justified....say, if that government started to enslave the people or systematically murder them. That's not the same as saying that it is justified right NOW.

He's just fucking nuts.

His favorite reading list is seriously left, including the Communist Manifesto.

Other views are much more to the right.

As Chris Rock said, "Whatever happened to just plain crazy?"

Never waste a good tragedy I guess.

If either side can score a few poll points on the backs of a few dead bodies, it's all in normal politics, right?

Only one book, the Communist Manifesto is considered by many to be leftist. There was also an Ayn Rand book, We the Living, which is an anti-communist novel. Ayn Rand was, and still is, an influential thinker in the creation of modern conservatism.

I was trying to get inside the "minds" of neo-nazis and other assorted white supremacist trash, as it is a goal of mine to be part of the eradication of that kind of garbage. Does reading that book make me a nazi?

He deliberately shot a politician for God's sake. How much more political can it be?


:eyes:

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Phelps for being too tolerant of Gays? Rand Paul for being a spendthrift?

Sometimes crazy is so far out there. That using terms like political doesn't make sense.

He hated the government.

The problem here is people trying to inject partisan politics into this.

His friend just went on TV and said he wasn't left or right, didn't even listen to talk radio or watch news.

He had a thing about government, and targeted her, probably because he had seen her at a rally, for which he got a thank you card. On that card he wrote "Die bitch." And this was before Palin came on the national scene.

Too many people are going to look real dumb for having jumped the gun on blaming.

You'd think they would have learned their lesson over the Obama Joker graphic, when it was an student who did it as Photoshop practice, trying out a new "jokerization" technique. And far from being white racist right-wing, he was an Arab Kucinich supporter.

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and a large part of the population equates the right wing with violence against politicians at this time because of their actions since Fox News, Dick Armey and the Koch Brothers funded and publicized the teabaggers.

The poll indicates perception, not reality.

The "reality" of this poll is that the perception of the right in America today is the politics of crazy.

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I, too, would be interested in finding out what those people thought the person's political views were - however, I think it's fair to say that, considering the American news cycle, many, many people are aware that Giffords was a Democrat and her opponent had "put her in the crosshairs" and that Giffords had also spoken out specifically against Palin's irresponsible and incendiary rhetoric.

iow, I could obviously be wrong, but I would doubt that, considering the current news cycle - people who have an opinion about political motivations would ascribe those to someone on the left.

again, this is perception, not reality.

initially the youtube video from the shooter seemed to be about right wing talking points, as well. He parroted a lot of the McVeigh sort of militia speak. Americans are also looking at this with the knowledge of that act of terrorism from a right wing militia group.

:bounce:

because people know Giffords was a democrat and they know Arizona has been over run with right wingers who have been waging a hate campaign against people of color. The state even received a mention as a place for people not to travel b/c of its targeting of people as "suspicious" because they look like they might be Latino.

people know about the vandalism and the death threats against politicians after the HCR vote.

obviously the poll doesn't provide any factual information.

what the poll DOES show, however, is that people equate the rhetoric of Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the teabagger faction with people who act out in violence.

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in the current news cycle - who has been associated with Giffords? Palin and her crosshairs pac.

Giffords' interview in which she calls out Palin has also been all over the news.

I haven't heard of any threats from people on the left against Giffords.

As far as Grayson - I'm surprised he was elected in the first place since his district is in Florida. The south as a whole is not a liberal place outside of major cities - outside of Florida. (I used to live in Miami and the Castro hatred is strong...upstate is fundie heaven.)

When Grayson gets a regular time slot on an extremist left equivalent of Fox News, let me know.

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I have no respect for anyone trying to make political capital from this.

http://www.schizophrenia.com/ami/

You'd better believe that if the situation were reversed, and the assassination target were a Republican, the corporate media would be playing up the political. That's their job, and it's part of what makes the MSM despicable.

And as everyone knows paranoid schizophrenics don't know how to work a TV, radio, or computer.
They just sit in the dark all day all paranoid and detached from reality.

Mentally ill people don't live in a vacuum any more than you do.
Apparently you have no respect for them either, since you think they're not human enough to observe the world around them.

John Nash got clues that formed his perception of reality from all types of media and communication. This assassin form his perception from something, and it all made sense to him. IMHO. Dana ; )

...when he was not happy to Giffords' answer to his nonsensical question.

and he was given permission by the voices in his head to shoot her. So it's probably not a good idea to put out communications that give permission to kill specific people, someone might be listening. Palin knowingly put out a hit, and this nut did it. Dana ; )

Your post is just as poorly grounded as an assertion the one could make that it was the Daily Kos that put the idea in his head when Giffords was in the "bulls eye" in a post at that site. She is a Blue Dog, after all.

And so I guess that you must be totally against phrases like "targeting red states" in elections or "hammering republicans" since mentally ill individuals could act on such statements to justify thier violent fantasies. You must have been on every Lieberman thread telling people to tamp down the vicious invective hurled at Joe. And I am certain that you were horrified at the stuff said about Bush, including openly expressed fantasies about assassination.

Or maybe not.

Sorry, but I prize consistency of thought and adherence to principle. Attempts to score cheap political points from this tragic massacre fail on both measures.

You can deflect and find false equivalencies to support your point of view. But Palin pointed a gun at Ms Giffords and asked us to reload. Palin knew exactly what she was doing, how many times has she been shown with guns and gore. If you think I'm trying to score cheap political points that says more about you than me. I want the threats of death because I'm a Democrat to stop. YOU GET IT?

First you want to blame Palin for the actions of an apparently paranoid schizophrenic murderer who had an obsession with Giffords since 2007 when no one in the lower 48 had ever heard of Palin, then you conflate several out of context statements the write "Palin pointed a gun at Ms Giffords and asked us to reload." The Missouri in me says "Show me." Palin didn't say anything more than Daily Kos said when they put a bulls-eye (their words) on Giffords and all the other blue-dogs. And there was plenty of hot and well-deserved criticism of the last administration. Those who believe the current administration should be exempt from similar treatment are fools. Now that the Republicans control the House I expect lots of harsh words from the other side. And that is as it should be. Rhetoric in politics gets heated, and those who can't stand the heat should get out of the kitchen. You want to see real invective, check out the political attacks common in the 19th century. We are pikers in comparison. But good, harsh political rhetoric is best grounded in some reasonable perspective, not assertions that could be exposed as comical by a middle school debate team.

You should pay attention to what the President said yesterday. Idiotic attempts to assign blame for the actions of a lunatic will only boomerang. Just like saying that all the tea party people are just a bunch of knucle-dragging racists contributed to an electoral sweep of historic proportions. Want the biggest Republican victory in a century in 2012? Piss off the center of the country by labeling them or their friends and neighbors as accomplices to murder.

And you are trying to score political points out of these murders. Cheap is an understatement.

Pointing a gun at Democratic congresspeople and asking us to reload is not equivalent to


You let me know when the "other side" (or as we call it here at DU "our side") use the same rhetoric and imagery that the teabaggers and their leaders have used over the past two years.


So the innocent bystanders who were killed by this nut who was trying to kill a congresswomen couldn't stand the heat


This is hyperbole


And this is a veiled threat of violence

Because the map I saw targeted the state, not the congresswoman.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/jared-loughners-friend-says-suspect-did-not-watch-tv-disliked-the-news_b48040

Highlight from an interview with Loughner's high-school friend, Zach Osler.

So much for that idea...

As for your comment that "Apparently you have no respect for them either, since you think they're not human enough to observe the world around them."

The irony of your comment is simply sublime. Schizophrenia is precisely a hall-of-mirrors distortion of the ability to observe reality. A schizophrenic's reality becomes a subjective nightmare of fantasy, inner voices that come from the ether but must be obeyed, disconnection from perception and the society of others, and loss of the ability to discern what is objectively real.

A person's humanity has nothing to do with it, nor their politics. Follow the link from my first post and read. It's a neurotransmitter problem.

...just got too much dopamine around here.

...how refreshing amongst the pile of steaming horse shit this tragedy has generated.

And the hate and bile filled atmosphere of this state and especially CD8 here in Tucson during the last election season had to have effected him...

He bought the gun right after the election, remember?

And bought the bullets to take to the Giffords event...

Why didn't he go down to McCain or Kyl's office? Or blast away at our Republican Mayor, Hmmmmm?

Unless you experienced this town during that vile display of the last election you can't really understand how crazy-making it was...

How scary is it that with maybe a page worth of evidence. We presume to establish degrees of culpability for a heinous crime.
We assume that had a Sharon Angle been his Rep. Loughner would have not killed? or Shot some other Dem/Blue Dog/Rino?

So if McCain was his Rep. would he be alive or dead? What about Huckabee?

Why wait for a trial by jury. Lets just run an opinion poll if he should be found guilty and electrocuted or not.

By next week, 100% of people may see the right wing as to blame.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/tucson-shooting-friend-jared-loughner-speaks-motive-alleged/story?id=12597092

SNIP - Regarding the high-pitched talk radio and cable news political rhetoric, Osler says his friend didn’t even watch the news.
“He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides.
He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right”.

to talk radio, or post on political Internet sites? See my point? Does this friend know about the plot to kill Cong. Giffords? If he knows so much about his friend, why didn't he know that?

Don't fall for the MSM con.

if the influence behind his actions wasn't political. His reasoning is no doubt twisted, but he didn't target a teacher, a student, a psychiatrist, or a Priest.
No he shot hell out of a political event, after fixating on and targeting a specific politician. It would be very hard for me to think it was not political.

He didn't bother to find out the political views or names or anything else of all but one of his victims.

The constant ads for Jesse Kelly calling Giffords a traitor, suggesting some M-16 rounds might help with the "liberal problem" (as if Gabby is a liberal -- which she IS NOT)...

blaring from the tv box for months everywhere you went in this town...

Were UNAVOIDABLE unless you just sat in your room 24/7...

and just might have given this poor crazy bastard some ideas...

or reinforced his already festering desire to "hit" his intended target, Gabby Giffords...

The right-wing filth from the Kelly campaign (and his own big mouth) had to have given this poor crazed bastard some positive reinforcement that yes, Giffords was the cause of all of his pain...