Politics may not be rocket science, but apparently it is brain surgery.

Understanding the genesis of political orientation has long been a subject of biological interest, with every few years a new study suggesting our ideological differences aren’t skin-deep, they’re sub-atomic. 

Add to the list the findings of the University College London, which takes the theory of different liberal and conservative genes to another level.  Liberals and conservatives have always thought the other had their brains wired differently and, according to the University, physically speaking they’re right.

But the University’s study is also a case example in the sideshow of the politicization of science – namely, “proving” that conservatives are mentally (or genetically) deficient:

Using data from MRI scans, researchers at the University College London found that self-described liberals have a larger anterior cingulate cortex–a gray matter of the brain associated with understanding complexity. Meanwhile, self-described conservatives are more likely to have a larger amygdala, an almond-shaped area that is associated with fear and anxiety.

Using every inch of my larger amygdala, it’s hard not to notice how many of these studies inevitably lead to a conclusion that liberal physiological differences are viewed as genetically preferable – if not superior.  A similar outlook could be found just this last year with the ballyhooed discovery of a so-called “liberal gene”:

As a consequence, people with this genetic predisposition who have a greater-than-average number of friends would be exposed to a wider variety of social norms and lifestyles, which might make them more liberal than average. They reported that “it is the crucial interaction of two factors — the genetic predisposition and the environmental condition of having many friends in adolescence — that is associated with being more liberal.”

Outgoing, popular kids equals well-balanced, politically liberal adults?  Conservatives are creepy, adolescent shut-ins?  Curse my shriveled anterior cingulate cortex for reading anything into that study.

Of course, not all scientists are inferring that our political and genetic differences are so stark as to invite a Cro-Magnon/Neanderthal comparison.  In fact, some recongize the potential for political bias in such a report and actively work to tap down any broad-based partisan conclusions…including the actual authors of the study:

While the London study does find distinct differences between Democrats and Republicans, its authors caution that more research needs to be done on the subject. One unknown is whether people are simply born with their political beliefs or if our brains adjust to life experiences–which is a possibility, Kanai writes.

“It’s very unlikely that actual political orientation is directly encoded in these brain regions,” he said in a statement accompanying the study. “More work is needed to determine how these brain structures mediate the formation of political attitude.”

Talk about burying the lead.  And I thought we were just told that larger anterior cingulate cortexs led to understanding complex subjects better. 

Truthfully, we want our differences to be genetic for they absolve us of needing to convince others.  And seeking to find that absolution – that genesis of political thought – in the genius of others brings to mind the words of the discoverer of the double helix, J.D. Watson: 

“One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.”

The Bad News:  The Wisconsin Supreme Court race is very, very close, and may  be headed for a recount.

But conservative candidate David Prosser is currently leading extremist whackdoodle liberal JoAnne Kloppenberg by a razor-thin margin…

…that might be headed for a recount, and thence to lawsuits with all sorts of union-paid lawyers that wind up in front of the very court for whom the elections are being held. Which is deadlocked.

But even with 99% of the vote counted, fewer than 600 votes – about 0.04% of ballots – separated the candidates. And The Associated Press said early Wednesday that the race was too close to call and that it would take hours or most of the day to get a final tally.

That close margin had political insiders from both sides talking about the possibility of a recount, which Wisconsin has avoided in statewide races in recent decades. Any recount could be followed by lawsuits – litigation that potentially would be decided by the high court.

The good news?  The election – held as Wisconsin is still up in arms (almost literally) over the collective bargaining squabble – shows on a statewide level that the Dems’ much-ballyhooed recall effort is likely, for the most part, to squib.

Parachutes might not actually save lives.

Serious.  The FDA has never run a double-blind study, there’s no academic literature on the subject, and therefore…

The perception that parachutes are a successful intervention is based largely on anecdotal evidence. Observational data have shown that their use is associated with morbidity and mortality, due to both failure of the intervention1 2 and iatrogenic complications*.3 In addition, “natural history” studies of free fall indicate that failure to take or deploy a parachute does not inevitably result in an adverse outcome.4 We therefore undertook a systematic review of randomised controlled trials of parachutes.

Wisconsin’s “labor movement” protesters have adopted a couple of new symbols.

The first, of course, is the very word “Solidarity”, although to be fair its use by radical left-wing labor activists long-predates the Polish “Solidarity” movement.  Since nobody retired the number, I suppose they can put it on their jersey.

But the “raised fist” is a pretty loaded symbol.  It’s been used by (according to this Wikipedia bit, with me adding a few bits of emphasis):

* Albanian National Liberation Front

* American Indian Movement

* Anarchist Black Cross

* Black Panther Party

* Democratic Labour Party of Brazil

* Earth First!

* Women’s Liberation

* Food Not Bombs

* International Brigades

* International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

* Italian Radical Party

* Jewish Defense League

* Kach

* National Equality March

* Otpor

* Parti Sosialis Malaysia (Socialist Party of Malaysia)

* Revolutionary Socialist Workers’ Party (Turkey)

* Red Front Fighters’ League

* Saor Éire (1967-1975)

* Socialist International

* Socialist Party of England and Wales

* Socialist Workers Party (Britain)

* Socialist Youth Front

* United Farm Workers

* Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front

Not to mention, if I recall correctly, Mussolini’s Camicia Neri, the “Black Shirts”.

Now, they can pick any symbol they want.  It’s a free country.

It’s just that with all the nation’s media and self-appointed social consciences having the victorian vapours over the most tangential symbolism among the Tea Party, it’s kinda odd that there’s no comment about a symbol that is linked on the one hand with a lot of violence, even terrorism (not that the unions seem averse to that, if only rhetorically)…

…and on the other with various Civil Rights movements – as if the “Right” to demand others pay for a standard of living they themselves cannot afford is on par with the right to vote and be considered equal before the law.

Just saying.

(Via Torin K at the TPL)

To: The Twin Cities mainstream media

From: Mitch Berg, Regular Schnook

Re: Double Standard

Dear Madames and Sirs,

Remember the spring of 2010?  When you furrowed your stately brows and tut-tutted about the ugliness, “vitriol” and “incipient violence” in American politics, when some of you noticed some questionable signs among a tiny fringe of Tea Partiers?  Many of which were shown to be either beyond the fringe, out of context, or complete false flags?

I’m wondering where the indignation, the brow-furrowing, the concern is over this:

Or this?

The left and media (pardon the redundancy) yakked a lot about purported racism at Tea Party rallies, especially the rally at the Capitol last March.  You fretted and phumphered and worried about our nation falling apart.

Any comment about this?

Not to rush you, but are you planning on furrowing your brows anytime soon over this?

If not – is it because you are, as your colleagues in Milwaukee are reported to be, in the bag for the protesters?

Or is it because your union pressman or cameraman will break your knees?

Let me know, OK?

Thanks.

That is all.

New bill in Texas would provide a destination for illegals:

This should get their attention.

A measure filed by State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) would allow any law enforcement agency that has custody of an illegal immigrant to take the illegal to ‘the office of a U.S. Senator or Representative’ and leave them there.

1200 WOAI [San Antonio] news reports the measure also allows county sheriff’s deputies or city police officers to ‘request an agent or employee of the United States Senator or United States Representative to sign a document acknowledging the release or discharge of the illegal immigrant at the senator’s or representative’s office.

The measure covers individuals who are ‘not a citizen or national of the United States’ and who is ‘unlawfully present in the United States.’

Kolkhorst concedes the measure is a ‘cry for help’ to convince federal officials to secure the border, but she says she is serious about getting the measure approved by the Legislature.

That might work in Texas.

Here in Minnesota, Keith Ellison or Betty McCollum would register them as voters.

A: They are uttering anything, in any form, via any medium.

The lefty “alternative” media, exhibiting their traditional independence of thought, seem to have happened en masse, on the story that a group of “White Nationalists” were at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week/weekend.

And – mirabile dictu – they all seem to be running the same bit of video!  What do you suppose the odds were?

“Reporting” on the “story” were Tweedle-Dee, Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dumber, Tweedle Dumbest, Tweedle Doh, Tweedlehead, Tweedlebobble, Tweedle Huh?, Tweedle Durr, and pretty much the entire Tweedle Nation.

Unmentioned by any of the Tweedles – the “white supremacist” was sent running with his tail between his legs by CPAC’s conservative attendees.

Further proof that leftyblogs – pretty much all of them – are to be distrusted, then verified.  Then, pretty much without exception, distrusted even more.

Being a DFLer means never wasting  a crisis – or a tragedy.

The Minnesota DFL is seizing on and exploiting the Tuscon Massacre in the special election campaign in House District 5B (Tony Sertich’s old seat):

A campaign brochure for Republican state legislative candidate Paul Jacobson depicting a hunter looking down a shotgun and urging voters to “take your best shot’’ while criticizing opponent Carly Melin has sparked outrage from some supporters of the DFL candidate.

Here’s the brochure:

Scary stuff, huh? A hunter, in his Elmer Fudd hat, holding a hunting shotgun. Just like most Iron Rangers do during hunting season.

Not sure if anyone is implying Carly Melin is, perhaps, rising out of a swamp and getting ready to fly south – most DFL memes really don’t make much sense.

The brochure, mailed this week to residents of Minnesota House District 5B, shows a person looking down the barrel and urges people to vote in the Feb. 15 special election to fill the open seat.

While the gun is not pointed at anything or anyone in particular, Melin’s photo is on the next page. The ad also calls Melin “a fake’’ and states that her campaign is “full of holes.’’

I’m starting to get the message; “criticizing the DFL in any way is a threat”.

Gary Cerkvenik, a longtime Iron Range DFL political activist and now a volunteer for Melin’s campaign, said the ad is eerily similar to attack ads last year that depicted several Democratic members of Congress in crosshairs. The ads were harshly panned after the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords last month in Tucson.

And Gary Cerkvenik is “eerily similar” to a smart person, but he doesn’t quite pull it off.

The left is of two minds about “civility” and “vitriol”

On the one hand, they say, perceived incivility and “vitriol” (the most overused word of 2011 so far) from the right aids and abets mass-murder.

On the other hand, the same from the left is a Constitutional right:

The proof?  The Leftwing has gone berserk over the chorus of condemnation of a play in Missoula, Montana that called for the beheading of Sarah Palin.  Rather than condemn the line in the play advocating for such barbarism, the Left instead has chosen to nitpick about the details of whether or not the play was intended for children, who produced it, or whether or not it was intended as a ‘joke.’

No one from the Leftwing, however, condemned the play or the producer for taking one of the great works of Gilbert and Sullivan and adding in at the last minute a line that called for Sarah Palin to be beheaded.  In fact, some of the reaction of the Left not only applauded the line but outright called for ALL conservatives to be beheaded.

It gets depressing, after a while, covering this sort of thing.

Here is a sample of comments made on yesterday’s article about the play:

“Since the Conservatives don’t understand civility, maybe we should chop all their heads off.”

“This is NOT a “children’s play.” Please get your facts straight before publishing information that could have serious effects on this non-profit organization.  This was an operetta produced by MCT Community Theatre, which is the community theatre arm of Missoula Children’s Theatre. This was not a production that was intended specifically for children. There were a small number of children in the cast, but there are children who chose, as artists, to perform in many productions outside of children’s theatre.  Had this been a children’s theatre production, this would have been unquestionably inappropriate. This was NOT, however, a “children’s play”!”

Please note, however, children were in the cast and children were in the audience.  What, then, is the point?  Any nonprofit that would allow such a thing to be stated, whether it is ‘a children’s play’ or not, should be questioned as to their value to the community.

Time for the left to get the point – walk what you talk.

(And my reference to “the point” is not a subtle call for the left to be stabbed or bayoneted).

Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen compares Obamacare repealers to Nazis:

“They say it’s a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels,” Cohen said. “You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it.  Like blood libel.

Let me take a moment to say that Governor Palin was ever-so-slightly in error, calling the attacks on her (implying that her rhetoric caused the Tucson shooting) a “blood libel”.  The term she may have been looking for was “gutless slander by a bunch of worthless, cowardly scumbags”.

But I digress.

“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it–believed it and you have the Holocaust.  We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care.  Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover,” Cohen said.

Actually, “Politifact”‘s story about “The Biggest Lie” was, in fact, the biggest lie.

And Steve Cohen needs to join his Democrat friends in retirement.

Headline on this morning’s PiPress story

Minnesota Republicans fire first shot in budget showdown

Has anyone checked Salisbury for firearms?

(Via Joe Doakes)

CNN contributes to “civlity”, apologizing for references to “crosshairs” referring to Democrats in Chicago…:

[King] is attracting a lot of notice — and some ridicule — in the blogosphere for his on-air apology after a guest used the word “crosshairs” during a report on Chicago politics Tuesday.  (The guest, a former Chicago reporter, referred to two rivals of mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel, saying Emanuel is “in both of their crosshairs.”) “We were just having a discussion about the Chicago mayoral race,” King told viewers.  “My friend Andy Shaw…used the term ‘in the crosshairs’ in talking about the candidates out there. We’re trying, we’re trying to get away from that language. Andy is a good friend, he’s covered politics for a long time, but we’re trying to get away from using that kind of language.

…and only Democrats:

Seven uses of “crosshairs” in just the month before the Tucson attacks, and just one of them referring to an actual wartime situation.  And one reference to Sarah Palin herself as being in “crosshairs.”

And not just Palin.  On September 14, Mark Preston, CNN’s senior political editor, referred to another controversial politician, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, as being “in the crosshairs.” “Michelle Bachmann is raising lots of money, raising her national profile,” Preston said on September 14.  “She is in the crosshairs of Democrats as well.”

The problem, of course, is that “civility” as it’s being discussed – on both sides, but mostly on the left – is always about making the other guy civil.

Tuscon schooing victim arrested for threatening a Tea Party leader:

One of the Arizona shooting victims was arrested Saturday and then taken for a psychiatric evaluation after authorities said he took a picture of a tea party leader at televised town hall meeting and yelled: “you’re dead.”

James Eric Fuller, 63, objected to something Trent Humphries said during the forum taped for a special edition of ABC’s “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour, Pima County sheriff’s spokesman Jason Ogan said. Fuller was in the front row and apparently became upset when Humphries suggested that any conversations about gun control should be delayed until all the dead were buried, KGUN-TV in Tucson reported.

Fuller was arrested on misdemeanor disorderly conduct and threat charges, Ogan said. While Fuller was being escorted out, deputies decided he needed a mental health evaluation and he was taken to a hospital, where he remained Saturday evening.

The hospital will determine when he will be released, Ogan said.

Let’s wait for the inevitable lecture on how the tone of our debate is driving people over the top, shall we?

It’s true that a big part of civility is what one says.  Things like calling someone you disagree with “Hitler” – bad.  Very very uncivil.

Another big part of civility is what you say back.  For example – if someone calls you “Hitler“, and you’re not actually a Nazi, “civility” involves responding to incivility in a civilized manner.

Civil responses:

• Ignoring the person who called you a “nazi”, because civil people ignore barbarians.
• Defuse the incivility with humor: “Er, no – have you tried to goosestep in shoes like this?”
• Look at  your attacker, affect a casual grin, and go “there you go again…”

Uncivil response:

• Call down the entire force of government to silence your opponent.

Remember – “civility” is a two-way street.

Mr. D. on the Wellstone Tuscon memorial with the President, and on the left’s newfound love of “civility”:

Civility comes from mutual agreement. It cannot be imposed by one side on the other. And it certainly can’t come until those who were party to the baseless calumnies heaped in recent days step forward and accept their responsibility for it. We can have an honest debate if we have honest debaters.

President Obama gave his allies on the Left a chance to climb down from the untenable place they have chosen to occupy. It is my hope that those allies will see fit to use the opportunity he has provided. If they do, the debate that so many people claim to desire will happen. If not — game on.

For myself?  I’ll sit in the back of the bus, and hide my knive so nobody brings a gun.

“Although we don’t yet know the official cause of yesterday’s [Fill in terrible event] in [Fill in location of terrible event], it seems obvious that the irresponsible and inflammatory [Pick one:  “vitriol” or “anti-government budget proposal]” ] coming from [Pick any three from the following list:  the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, the current GOP majority in the House of Representatives, the Taxpayers League, Christian fundamtntalists, the NRA, extreme pro-lifers, Fox News] are the prime suspects.”

“We don’t know officially know exactly what [Pick one:  “Put the gun in [the suspect’s] hand” or “caused the [natural or man-made disaster]” ], but vitriol from the right, which polluted much of American politics from 1992 to 2000, and started again in 2009, is surely the prime suspect.”

“We only know one thing for sure; it is for us who remain to speak for the victims; “[Pick one:  “Quit your dilly-dallying and approve the Democrats’ budget proposal” or “take a fresh look at sensible gun control]” ]; while you’re at it, perhaps it’s time to look into reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, to make sure those without voices – Congress, the mainstream media and The People – aren’t drowned out in the flood of vitriol from [Pick any three from the following list:  the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, the current GOP majority in the House of Representatives, the Taxpayers League, Christian fundamtntalists, the NRA, extreme pro-lifers, Fox News].”

“-30-“

Watching The Today Show this morning, I saw very, very little talk about “vitriolic conservatives” in the coverage of the Giffords shooting.

And now, even the Arizona Republic is putting its foot down on Pima County sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat who blamed conservative rhetoric for the shooting before the blood had even dried at the Safeway.

Fair enough – he was emotional.  But then he repeated the charge yesterday.  And even the Republic is saying enough is enough:

And, in response, we have to say at last . . . enough. Enough attacks, sheriff. Enough vitriol. It is well past time for the sheriff of Pima County to get a grip on his emotions and remember his duty.

With each passing hour, we learn more about the 22-year-old suspect. And everything we learn adds to the profile of a deeply troubled young man detached from reality. There is nothing to date that suggests any partisan motivation for his crimes, whether right-wing or left.

Dupnik needs to recall that he is elected to be a lawman. With each additional comment, the Democratic sheriff of Pima County is revealing his agenda as partisan, and, as such, every bit as recklessly antagonistic as the talk-show hosts and politicians he chooses to decry.

When even some parts of the mainstream media (we know, the NYTimes is beyond hope) get it, maybe there’s some hope.

I grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota.

One of the town’s main industries is, and has for 130 years been, the North Dakota State Hospital, a place that’s seen a century’s worth of psychiatric fads – from restraint to sterilization to electroshock to drugs – come and go.

In the seventies, the fad – driven by the ACLU and the social “sciences” academy – was deinstitutionalization.  Mandates passed in the late seventies saw a good chunk of the State Hospital’s population converted from inpatients to outpatients.  Some of these outpatients had noplace else to go, so they gravitated down the hill into Jamestown itself.  To this day, some of them wander the city’s “loop” – First Avenue, Tenth Street – day in, day out, drinking coffee and doing whatever their various combinations of disorders and medications tell them to do.

One of those former inpatients was “Kenny” (name changed, partly for his privacy, partly because after 20-odd years I don’t actually remember it).   Of all the characters that came down the hill, Kenny was pretty distinctive.  He wore a red, military-style beret with some sort of badge worn on front, commando-style, and a brown vest adorned with all sorts of military patches – all home-made – and embroidered with “Satan’s Angels” on the back.  He and his girlfriend, “Sue”, would wander the loop together.  They were also regulars at the bar at the Holiday Inn where I worked after my junior year of college.  Kenny would park all evening in a stool and tell stories of his time in a “Marine Special Forces” unit in Vietnam; of battles fought in jungles we’d never heard of…

…because they didn’t exist.  He told stories of units that didn’t exist, and places that didn’t either.  He told stories that real Vietnam vets heard and scoffed at – but nobody really pushed it with the guy, not that I saw – because he looked and sounded mentally ill.

And so for years, Kenny and Sue wandered the streets of Jamestown.  Time rolled on.  I moved to the Cities.  And one day, four or five years later, someone from Jamestown told me Kenny had strangled Sue to death, and been shot by the police in a standoff.

Question:  On whose vitriolic political rhetoric should we have blamed the murder?

With the brush of what fringe political thinker could we tar Kenny’s demented act?

As the world learns more about Jarred Loughner, the unlikelihood that any “political rhetoric” had even the most oblique role in causing his atrocity over the weekend is becoming more and more clear to just about everyone.

Everyone that hasn’t been waiting for something to come along to shut up the newly-uppity right, anyway.

America’s village idiot Paul Krugman tipped his hand, comparing the episode to Oklahoma City in his deeply depraved column over the weekend.  But he wasn’t entirely off base; there was at least one valid comparison to 1995.

Back then, Bill Clinton had just seen his agenda repudiated at the polls with the second-greatest mid-term drubbing in recent memory.  The left lost both chambers of Congress for the first time in more than a generation.  Clinton needed something to get his message across; his administration didn’t “waste the crisis”; Hillary as much as blamed the horror on Rush Limbaugh and his “rhetoric”.

It was, of course, “rhetoric”, itself.

Today’s left isn’t wasting the Tuscon massacre.  Carolyn McCarthy (D[emigog], NY) is using the crisis to introduce gun control legislation of the type that utterly failed to prevent her own husband from being murdered in New York, or to keep Chicago from being the most dangerous city in the Western Hemisphere north of Juarez – a place that suffers as many deaths as Tuscon once or more a week.

And James Clyburn wants to redefine free speech as, well…:

The shooting is cause for the country to rethink parameters on free speech, Clyburn said from his office, just blocks from the South Carolina Statehouse. He wants standards put in place to guarantee balanced media coverage with a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, in addition to calling on elected officials and media pundits to use ‘better judgment.’

‘Free speech is as free speech does,’ he said. ‘You cannot yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater and call it free speech and some of what I hear, and is being called free speech, is worse than that.’

Clyburn used as an example a comment made by Sharron Angle, an unsuccessful U.S. senatorial candidate in Nevada, who said the frustrated public may consider turning to ‘Second Amendment remedies’ for political disputes unless Congress changed course.

Clyburn’s lying, by the way; Michael Medved addressed Angle’s “second amendment remedies” comment last August (here’s the audio).  Angle was not calling for armed insurrection…

…but as we’ve seen throughout the left’s reaction to the Tuscon massacre – as during the Healthcare debate, with its spurious claims of violence – what people actually say and do isn’t really the issue.

I’m glad to see the Associated Press’ Charles Babington T issuing this warning about “rhetoric”…:

Politicians of all stripes are bound to be haunted by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ warning, 10 months before she was shot, to cool the rhetoric.

It’s been a year or more of raw politics, with anger spilling over on both sides and gun-related metaphors coming loosely from the lips of some candidates and activists.

…after this nation sat through eight years of “Chimpy McBusHitler” and “time to secede from Jesusland” and “If (pick your candidate wins) we’re moving to (socialist utopia) and “Screw ’em” and “God D*mn The USA” and “I think I’ve got the ‘nads for a revolution” and “I hope Tony Snow died a painful death“, and this…:

(oh, this is SO much more benign that Sarah Palin's "targets", isn't it?)

…and…

…oh, what’s the point?

Well, the point is that everyone gets their knickers in a spin over the other guy’s rhetoric.

Did Michele Bachmann’s “rhetoric” cause someone to kill Bill Sparkman – to pick just one example of the left’s chattering heads like the loathsome and incompetent Paul Krugman jumping to an unwarranted but pre-written conclusion?  No, he killed himself.  But one is bidden to wonder whose rhetoric it was that caused Mr. Sparkman to choose to as his last act on his earth to slander “anti-government” protesters?

Mr. Loughton’s mind was pretty clearly gone over the edge.  I’m no shrink, but if he didn’t have some sort of dissociative disorder, I’ll eat my hat (rhetorically speaking).  Now, the insane and the not-very-bright do tend to be drawn to one political extreme or another.  To listen to the caterwauling of the left, the right – and only the right – needs to watch it’s rhetoric so that…

…so that the insane don’t get the wrong idea?

I’m still unclear on what it is they’re looking for, besides trying to slander and/or shut up the right.

The Giffords shooting has truly separated the wheat from the repugnant chaff.

Paul Krugman in the NYTimes?  In  a column released on the NYTimes online before the last body was cold, and indeed looks pre-written?  Chaff:

A Democratic Congresswoman has been shot in the head; another dozen were also shot.

We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was.

Krugman goes on to give no evidence that Loughner was politically motivated in any way.

She’s been the target of violence before.

And in Paul Krugman’s world, correlation equals causation – even if there’s no correlation!

And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that “the whole Tea Party” was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list.

Watch for the drumbeat over the coming weeks; “Rhetoric” will be targeted.  Oh, just certain kinds of rhetoric; political “crosshairs” bad, “war” on obesity good.

Just yesterday, Ezra Klein remarked that opposition to health reform was getting scary.

To be fair, Ezra Klein is scared of the Constitution, freedom, and Girl Scouts selling cookies.

Actually, it’s been scary for quite a while, in a way that already reminded many of us of the climate that preceded the Oklahoma City bombing.

And there, finally, Krugman is right.

The left, shredded nationwide in the past election, needs a Reichstag Fire.  Oklahoma City helped give Bill Clinton the horrible, emotionally-wrenching distraction  he needed to regroup after his drubbing in 2004 (and by that I’m calling him an opportinist, not a conspirator); Krugman knows not to “waste a crisis”, too.

You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.

“When did you stop beating your wife”.

Update: I see that Sarah Palin has called the shooting “tragic”. OK, a bit of history: right-wingers went wild over anyone who called 9/11 a tragedy, insisting that it wasn’t a tragedy, it was an atrocity.

And with that noxious tu quoque, we’ll move on to a more local example.

“Matt McNeil” is a “host” at AM950, a liberal talk “radio station” in the Twin Cities.  He popped up on Twitter a few times yesterday:

The rhetoric of the right is playing out. I can’t wait for the righto’s saying “Who could have…”

As we’re all shocked, every Republican is meeting with their staff right now to figure out how they can seem sympathetic but not critical.

Oh screw you – all of those who are now saying “don’t rush to judgement,” We all know where this rhetoric was headed, don’t act surprised

All three before we knew who the shooter was, much less that Loughner is apparently insane.

Never waste a crisis, I guess.  There are enemies to tar.

And yes, there are really depraved people on the fringes of every issue.  We know that.

But when the New York Times gives space to someone whose only act is to fraudulently slander his political enemies, what does that say about the Times’ “rhetoric?”

More on “rhetoric” tomorrow.

Law enforcement is saying that the Giffords’ shooter was one Jared Loughner, a student at Pima Community College.

Here’s his Youtube channel.  Check out the references to “government controlling our minds by controlling grammar”, mind control, the unconstitutionality of tuition.   There are references that make noises that sound like anarchism and atheism – but for the most part, he seems to be very, very mentally ill; if he is indeed the shooter behind the (as this is written) 1 to 4 dead, very very mentally ill.

Here’s an example:

Here’s another, from three weeks or so ago, with a few rather troubling bits in it:

looks just a tad mentally ill, from my utterly unqualified but common-sense-drenched perspective.

Judge for yourself.

Side note:  Anyone trying to fob this maniac off on the Tea Party is going to have me to deal with.  Don’t go there.

For the record, I’m with Speaker Boehner on this one:

“I am horrified by the senseless attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and members of her staff.  An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve.  Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society.  Our prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her staff, all who were injured, and their families.  This is a sad day for our country.”

And my prayers are with Rep. Giffords and her family, as well as all the other victims – however many there are.

UPDATE:  I’m in the studio, with Ed, digging into whatever’s available about Mr. Loughner.  So is Ed, over at HotAir.

UPDATE 2:  Rep. Giffords is out of surgery – after having been reported as “dead” by NPR and Fox during the 1PM CT hour.  There is apparently room for optimism about the Representative’s condition.  She was (reportedly) shot in the temple at four feet range; perhaps the vagaries of ballistics and some excellent doctors have given her a miracle.

The piece is from last week – I was a bit remiss in not linking it back then, and I plead overwork – but Sheila Kihne has been unpacking the unholy alliance of “community organizers” and liberal churches in bringing stifling PC to the parts of Minnesota that actually pay their own way:

The Star Trib today featured another installation of it’s ongoing series on the wannabe martyr of suburban school reform, Eden Prairie Superintendent Melissa Krull. (Michelle Rhee she is not, but she’s sure trying hard to attain the same level of national adoration.) Our good friend Myron Orfield was back too with this Christmas message of goodwill:

From this article.

“This is a big decision for the school board and for the region — whether we’re going to have racially integrated school districts,” Orfield said. ”The implications [if the proposed plan fails] will be that there are a group of white racist parents who can stop integration in schools.”

I try very, very hard not to question intent. I try to believe that people are inherently good. But this statement is really beyond the pale.

But the lines for “the pale” have been pushed out to the point where demigogues like Orfield do believe slandering those who stand in their way is perfectly acceptable.

Read the rest of Sheila’s piece.  She had a great 2010; 2011 should rock.

I was born 17 years after the Holocaust ended was shut down by American, Soviet, British and Free French troops.

I’d say “Genocide is a bad thing”.  But then Glenn Maxham of Duluth would get mad at me.

Who is Maxham? I dunno.  He’s a guy who claims to have “worked for three decades as a radio and television news director in the Twin Ports”, but all I really know about him is that he wrote a letter to the editor of the Duluth News Tribune.

For me, the strident pleas of right-wing dissidents to get government off our backs has a hollow ring, and I conjecture it comes from those unlikely to have personally experienced life in a nation under a truly oppressive regime. I have done so several times.

Hm.  That brings a whole new tilt to the study of right and wrong.

After all, I’ve never been gang-raped, had Muscular Dystrophy, been robbed at gunpoint, been swindled out of my life’s savings, had my family killed by machete-wielding ethnic extremists, had a bad overdose on adulterated cocaine, or killed anyone in a car crash, but I know I really don’t want any of them to happen.

Do I have the moral standing to believe that?  What gives one that sort of moral standing?

After spending a month in the old Soviet Union and in later visits to its puppet states of Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland, I witnessed the cruel, unjust use of power firsthand that made me realize the wealth of freedoms we enjoy to the fullest here in the U.S.

Ah.  So being a tourist in places where bad things are happening gives one that standing!  Experiencing a little of something bad qualifies one to criticize it!  Now we’re getting somewhere!

So – if someone kisses me under the mistletoe by surprise, get a bad cold, have to scrape graffiti off my garbage can, see my property taxes go up, get called “a white male”, spend a day recovering from some “off” chicken or knock over my neighbor’s garbage can, then I have standing to inveigh against rape, MD, blue and white collar crime, genocide, drugs or drunk driving?

But not until?

OK. I”m still confused.

At age 20 I was drafted during the Korean conflict. I spent nearly two years overseas, compensated with the GI Bill, which allowed me to finish college at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Now well into my retirement years, I live a comfortable life with the help of Social Security and Medicare. I am free to express my political views and free to travel anywhere in our 50 states without checking in with police at the borders to verify my identity and to provide details of my travel plans.

By contrast, I had my camera confiscated in the Soviet Union because I took a picture of still-frozen rivers in July while flying over Siberia. In Stargard, Poland, I was briefly jailed after a person in my party violated an inane law prohibiting pictures of train stations. In all of the Iron Curtain counties I had to leave my passport and room key at the hotel as a guarantee I would not stray outside the city. I was followed wherever I went, and my suitcase examined in each new hotel when I was not in my room. You get the picture.

Well, maybe I do, and maybe I don’t.

So  – until I take a trip through, say, Burma, I shouldn’t complain about military dictatorships?

Here at home, I’m growing increasingly weary of vague charges that we must “take back our country,” that liberals are legislating away freedoms and in general trashing our government, charges that are vacuous at best.

Now, I’m still confused, and I’m facing a bit of a dilemma.  If I make the “charges” less “vague” and “vacuous”, will Mr. Maxham get more “weary”?  Not having had my camera confiscated or my belongings fluffed by the ZOMO, do I have standing or leave to address the isssue?  Or should I go rent a Pole?

By Mr. Maxham’s leave, I’ll take a swing at it.

Rarely, if ever, have I seen an enumeration of denied freedoms by the malcontents. What specifically are those who call for a “restoration of freedoms lost” talking about? Cite examples.

Now we’re getting somewhere!  He’s missed the list of freedoms we’ve lost and want back!

I’ll run down a quick list, in Amendment order – risking, as I do, Mr. Maxham’s wrath for commenting about Constitutional Freedoms without having had the entire Constitution suspended:

First Amendment: The FCC is working to establish “Net Neutrality”, which will eventually lead to censorship via the back door; they’ve also been working on getting the “Fairness Doctrine” back into effect.  If you speak out against a TSA goon, you stand a good chance of being arrested on specious grounds.  Campaign finance laws in effect ration speech (both in the “speech is money” sense of the term as well as finding ways to interpret literal “speech” as campaign contributions. Our freedom of religion and association are both under attack with “civil rights” groups sueing landlords who want to rent to coreligionists; there is legitimate concern that if gay marriage is legalized, US courts will follow the Canadian example and prosecute churches that refuse to recognize the practice.  Freedom of association is under further attack by lawsuits that prevent groups from choosing their memberships in even harmless ways.  In many states, recording the police, even in the Campus speech codes make “free speech” a choosy thing.  The Federal Election Commission is still working on ways to regulate blogs.  And there is a significant movement in government (including Keith Ellison) that wants to subsidize – in effect, nationalize – newspapers.

Second Amendment:  Most major cities still crimp the rights of the law-abiding citizen to keep and bear arms, as do a few states.  They adopt gun control laws that don’t inhibit crime, but make citizens criminals for exercising their constitutional rights. States enact arbitrary and unrealistic laws government self-defense, which in effect criminalize perfectly legitimate behavior in self-defense, on largely political and ideological grounds.   Classes of firearms are prohibited due to arbitrary, purely cosmetic and PR issues.  (Or is Mr. Maxham only concerned about the freedoms he values?  I gotta ask…)

Third Amendment:  OK, so far so good.

Fourth Amendment:  Police can seize and sell property on accusation for drug charges – not conviction.  Cities can use extralegal administrative/non-judicial means to seize property – or merely devalue it to the point of untenability – and remove residents on purely political grounds.   Property rights are routinely and constantly infringed by administrative edicts from government bureaus – pollution control, transit, economic development, zoning and other government bureaux.   Oh, and the TSA can grab your junk, and if you say “boo”, they’ll throw you in Guantanamo.

Fifth Amendment:   With allegations of sexual assault and domestic abuse, “guilt until proven innocent” is becoming the rule.   Citizens accused of drunk driving are routinely deprived of Fourth Amendment rights.  County social service agencies have immense extrajudicial power to intervene in family situations – sometimes needed, but other times either in error, or in conjunction with the designs of other agencies.

Ninth and Tenth Amendments:  The courts have let the Commerce Clause serve as a catchall to empower government regulation; the powers of the States and People – on property and land rights issues, election issues, education, healthcare and many other issues – have been sucked into the bureaucratic vortex.

General Economic Liberty: Government actions are subjecting me, my kids, my grandkids and my great grandkids to a mountain of debt.  When one is indebted against one’s own will, one is not free.  Here or in East Germany.

That was about five minutes’ work.  I’d continue, but I bet Mr. Maxham is getting “increasingly weary”.

No doubt many are well-meaning but are woefully misguided and seem to labor under the impression that, to be a genuine patriot, one must hate liberals and be anti-government.

Whoah, there, bigfella!  Where did “hate” come into this?

At the risk of “increasingly wearying” Mr. Maxham, since when does honest, spirited dissent, and trying to keep our government in check, equal “hate?”

By Mr. Maxham’s “logic”, when I tell my kids they can not build a skateboard park in my backyard (with my money!), that’s “hatred”.

I’d hope even Mr. Maxham could see that logic; if I need to translate it into Polish to give it more of that authentic eclat, I’d be happy to help out.

The health of our democracy depends upon having a healthy, effective, two-party system.

Now, I learned Latin in high school, not in ancient Rome – ha ha! – but I know a “non sequitur” when I see one.

There are, and always will be, many shortcomings in our system that need improvement.

Right.  The question is – do we have the right to address them, if we have never been tourists in the USSR?

Mr. Maxham, I’m here to help.  Please – send an enumerated list of people who you’d allow to protest against US government policy.

But when viewed in a comparative sense, our government ranks among the best in the world.

And a lot of us just want to keep it that way.   And once we know who Mr. Maxham would allow to work on that, we’ll get right down to business!

I fail to believe the negative tactics of the Tea Party, and its ultra-conservative sympathizers, can improve upon it.

All kidding aside, Mr. Maxham, why would you think anyone would care what you think about how we, The People, exercise our First Amendment rights to try to make our country a better place and keep our freedoms from eroding further than they have?

What – besides a tour to the Warsaw Pact – would have ever given you the impression that your dismissal of our efforts, and our exercise of our rights, had any merit at all?

Glenn Maxham worked for three decades as a radio and television news director in the Twin Ports.

Oh.

Yet another “study” made the rounds a few weeks ago claiming that Fox News viewers are less well-informed than the average news consumer.

These things have been going around and around – and getting debunked – for so long, it’s hard to even pay attention anymore.   There will, inevitably, be a savage debunking.  It never fails.

And so there is; the “study”, accepted as gospel by everyone from your slack-jawed corner leftyblogger to the HuffPo to the NYTimes (pardon the redundancy) isn’t worth the electrons it was printed on.  The study:

• Didn’t test what it claimed,
• The data collected supported opposite conclusions than what was claimed,
• The “study” contained a trick question
• It contained baseless conclusions.
• It presented highly disputed conclusions as fact – and, in the bargain, it presented policy points from left-of-center groups as the “Truth”, differing from which meant that one was “misinformed”.

In short, the “study” was no more valid than, say, a Humphrey Institute poll.  Oh, yeah – and it’s funded by George Soros.

The whole debunk is on video here.

Watch it, and remember – if more than one liberal group claims something to be a fact, 99% of the time it is a lie.