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What if dan erected a giant strawman?
...and he had shot a wing-nut politician? forget this being politically motivated or not...forget this guy being a lone nut.....wouldn't wing-nuts be calling for a new crusade?
Why Isn't Jared Lee Loughner a Homegrown Terrorist?
Wednesday 12 January 2011
by: Sahar Aziz, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
truthoutHow many more members of Congress have to be victims of politically motivated violence before we acknowledge terrorism is defined by the act and not the iden y of the actor? Any person who "use{s} violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature ... through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear" is a terrorist.
While clearly suffering from some sort of mental disorder, Jared Lee Loughner was motivated to some extent by anti-government politics. Had his name been Mohammed, we would be talking about homegrown terrorism, not gun control or mental illness.
The tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is a wakeup call that religious profiling does not work. While our nation was obsessed with Muslim "homegrown terrorism," Loughner stealthily planned his terrorist scheme.
It is no secret that since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the FBI has focused its anti-terrorism efforts on Muslims.
As our law enforcement fixates on young Muslim males in the legitimate goal to stop domestic terrorism, those outside the profile execute their terrorist acts undetected. Thus, it should come as no surprise that when law enforcement misguidedly focus their resources investigating individuals and communities based on ineffective racial or religious profiles, they miss the Loughners of the world.
....just another 'random act' of violence no doubt....how many random acts does there have to be for it not be random anymore?
What if dan erected a giant strawman?
The world may never know
Because he's insane and terrorists are motivated by ideology, not voices in their head or skulls in their backyard.
It would look just like this...or, a cow patty.
what if you think their ideology is insane....like shooting Mexicans because they want a better way of life?
It's still an ideology driven and propagandized by a larger community.
Loughner was his on his own.
I have absolutely no clue to what you are referring.
Was he?Loughner was his on his own.
Explained: Jared Loughner’s Grammar Obsession
The alleged shooter’s statements closely echo the teachings of a popular far-right tax-resister movement.
By Justine Sharrock - Mother Jones
Tue Jan. 11, 2011 12:48 PM PST
Mother Jones<snip>
What was going on in Jared Loughner's mind? Based on his online rantings, the man who allegedly emptied a 31-round clip into Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and dozens of bystanders Saturday was preoccupied with theories on a massive government fraud. Many of his seemingly random statements—on "grammar," "the ratifications," "the new currency," and more—echo the teachings of the "sovereign citizen" movement, a right-wing school of thought alleging that Americans have been surrep iously stripped of their God-given rights.
These are not random parallels, as I discovered in reviewing Loughner's YouTube videos. In multiple instances, he uses the precise talking points sovereign-citizen theorists teach via a thriving cottage industry of books, websites, bogus legal companies, and seminars; one popular theorist, David Wynn Miller, told the New York Times that Loughner has "probably been on my website." (It's important to note that the sovereign-citizen movement is a philosophy, not an organized movement; Loughner's interest in its teachings doesn't implicate any individuals or organizations in his actions.) A few cases in point, taken from a video Loughner posted on December 15, 2010.
"The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar." (3:34)
As the Guardian's Peter Walker and Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown reports have pointed out, this is the basic premise of the sovereign-citizen argument, which posits that government has used linguistic devices in certain laws to strip us of our rights. "This is an extraordinary freaking word game," says Alfred Adask, a guru of the sovereign movement and former publisher of the sovereign-citizen magazine AntiShyster, told me. "Not many people know how to do it or even understand it. The government has ensnared us with the sophisticated use of words and put us back into bondage. You have to master the definitions and start working out with a law dictionary."
"I can't trust the current government because of the ratifications." (3:34)
To theorists like Robert Kelly, publisher of The American's Sovereign Bulletin, the leading publication in the sovereign-citizen world, it all started with the Cons ution's Reconstruction Amendments—the 13th, 14th, and 15th—which established a secondary class of citizens under the control of the government. This was done by cleverly deploying phrases such as "citizens subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and "inalienable rights" (supposedly denoting rights that can be surrendered, as opposed to "unalienable rights" that can never be taken away). People in the sovereign citizens' movement believe that these subterfuges were originally used to limit African Americans' rights, but have been expanded over time to make all of us second-class citizens with limited rights. (Another favorite case in point: the use of the phrase "man or other animals" in the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act—implying, they argue, that humans have no more legal rights than animals).
Unless, of course, you were complicit. Well?
Seriously, I'm not getting into your insane "can you prove it isn't" nonsense tonight. One time, every couple of months, is enough for me.
Why is Dan so quick to play the conspiracy card.
Oh, wait, nevermind.
I'm going to my local "Government Controls People through Grammar" meeting tomorrow.
How stupid are you people? No need to answer.
What if the shooter was a Mexican?
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/12/132865...tino-community"It's safe to say there was a collective sigh of brown relief when the Tucson killer turned out to be a 'gringo'. Had the shooter been Latino, media pundits wouldn't be discussing the impact of nasty politics on a young man this week — they'd be demanding an even more stringent anti-immigrant policy. The new members of the House would be stepping over each other to propose new legislation for more guns on the border, more mothers to be deported, and more employers to be penalized for hiring brown people. Obama would be attending funerals and telling the nation tonight that he was going to increase security just about everywhere."
I think Dan raises some fair points about how different this might be perceived if the killer was of another race.
As far as the contention that terrorism requires a large community... some people consider the Unabomber a terrorist, and he acted solo, AFAIK.
But his ideology wasn't a unique one. , remember that whole exercise where you were asked, "who said this, Al Gore (in his book, "Earth in the Balance") or the Unabomber, (in his manifesto)?"
So far as I know, Loughner's acts were born of a unique obsession with Giffords...not shared by anyone else.
There's your difference and Dan's still an idiot.
I thought he was a giant strawman. You mean he isn't?
How many tears did you shed for Danielle Bologna? How loud were your cries for legislative change after this incident?
Politics makes hypocrites out of all.
Understood, but if he's trying to push a political message, using terrorist tactics, isn't he a terrorist, regardless of whether he does it alone or with help?
For which there is no evidence.
I would argue his intent wasn't to terrorize but to kill. He appears to have had little regard for what survivors, or the rest of us for that matter, took away from the crime.
To terrorize, it seems to me, would necessarily have the intent of instilling terror. But, just because people, at the Safeway that day, were terrorized doesn't mean that was his intent.
I really think the act of terror carries with it a ideological message, "you will [accede to some demand] or I [we] will kill you." It does not appear Loughner's acts carried any such requirement -- there's pretty much nothing anyone at the Safeway could have done, beforehand, to dissuade him from acting.
what if his name had been Charlton Heston...
that would have been awkward.
I know this, my "if" in this sentence was genuine, and not rhetorical. (It could have been read either way.)
Where do you draw the line then? For instance, look at Timothy McVeigh. Most people would say he's an obvious terrorist... mad at the government, used a bomb to blow up a building. But what if he just wanted to kill a bunch of people? What if he had no political leanings? Would he still be a terrorist?
I understand that idea. But what about the Tokyo Gas bombings in the subway? AFAIK, those people didn't have some ultimatum (I might be wrong, correct me if I am), but we still call that terrorism. If anything, their message seemed to be "We're doing this because we can".
That there is some funny ...
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