Not a good week for Arizona.
“The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately Arizona I think is the capital. We are the Mecca for prejudice for prejudice and bigotry,”
via ABC News: Police Hunt for ‘Person of Interest’ in Tucson Shooting
Yesterday a deranged murderer interrupted a gathering arranged by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. She was shot and is in critical condition. 6 innocent people were killed including a 9-year-old child.
The Not-Our-Fault reverse blame game started immediately. Some shrieking radical right-wing blogs wasted no time declaring that the shooter was not one of theirs. This always starts with “the victims are in our prayers” but degenerates into “the left are scum”. This is not a surprise since I rarely come across a conservative blog that’s not a radical pool of nuts. Some of the sites I frequent were actually subdued. The commentators? Not so much.
That doesn’t surprise me. Blog comments are easy and do attract the radical fringe.
Naturally, many people are pointing the finger at the half-term governor. I think that’s only partially correct. When you have political protests and people talk about armed insurrection, they’re culpable for atrocities like this one. The half-term governor is more at fault because she claims to be a leader.
Leaders take responsibility, so except for some quaint statements I’m not anticipating much from her.
You can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater and claim no responsibility when someone get’s trampled in a stampede. That the shooter may not be Tea Party inspired doesn’t change the fact that they were encouraging people to do this.
Do you think if this happens again, the radicals will stand up and say “yep, that one was ours. Here’s his membership card.” Also, why is this not being called a terrorist act?
I’m just asking. Don’t worry, I don’t like to incite violence either.
