On Saturday, January 8, tragedy paid a call
on
Tuscon, Arizona. That morning outside
of a supermarket a gunman opened fire,
killing six people and wounding thirteen
others. One of the wounded was newly
re-elected U.S. Representative Gabrielle
"gabby" Giffords, whose district includes
Tuscon. Giffords was shot in the head, and
is currently fighting for her life. Among
the dead are U.S. District Court Judge John
Roll, a friend of Rep. Giffords who stopped
by to say hello while she met with her cons-
tituents; Gabe Zimmerman, an aide to the
congresswoman; and nine-year-old Christina
Greene, who was recently elected to her
elementary school's student council and was
looking forward to meeting Rep. Giffords.
According to
Pima County Sheriff Clarence
Dupnik, Giffords was the target of a 22-year
old man with a history of mental instability.
It is believed that the gunman had an accom-
plice, and that person is being sought by the
law. But Dupnik went on to blame what he
termed the "vitriolic rhetoric" in our politics,
making no bones about whom he held respon-
sible for it: "When you look at unbalanced
people, how they respond to the vitriol that
comes out of certain mouths about tearing
down the government ... The anger, the hatred,
the bigotry that goes on in this country is get-
ting to be outrageous, ... and unfortunately,
Arizona I think has become the capital. We
have become the mecca for prejudice and
bigotry."
Time for an examination of the facts, my
wonderful readers. The gunman, Jared Lee
Laughner, seemed to have been mentally
unravelling since he was in the tenth grade,
according to some of his high school class-
mates who socialized with him. No one
found Laughner to be especially political,
though he was openly critical of then-Pres-
ident
George W. Bush. After breaking up
with his girlfriend his behavior became
increasingly bizarre. Laughner turned to
drugs and dropped out of high school after
eleventh grade. He then was arrested on
numerous charges including possession
of drugs and drug paraphernalia and tagging
(painting graffiti). He read and kept copies
of
Mein Kampf and The Communist Mani-
festo. He claimed that the government was
brainwashing people and controlling their
minds. He posted bizarre messages on his
Facebook page, some of which supposedly
gave clues as to his intentions regarding Rep.
Giffords. He also posted a series of videos
on
YouTube since late November spewing
anger at the government and the Constitution.
But with all the facts gathered and the infor-
mation given by Laughner's high school class-
mates and teachers, there was nothing connect-
ing Laughner to the Republican Party, the Tea
Party, or to conservative politics despite the
political grandstanding of Sheriff Dupnik.
Rep. Giffords was a "blue dog" democrat; a
moderate who sometimes supported thing
opposed by the liberal wing of her party, i.e.
the right of citizens to possess firearms; she
is a member of the
National Rifle Association
(NRA). The main beef that conservatives had
with Giffords was her voting for the passage
of the Obama Health Care bill. However, she
enjoyed the respect and admiration of Repub-
licans as well as Democrats, and of conserva-
tives as well as liberals. Judge Roll was a
staunch conservative and a respected jurist
who was appointed to the federal bench by
President George W. Bush. Roll was known
for his toughness with criminal defendants,
especially illegal immigrants who crossed
into Arizona from Mexico.
These are very odd targets for assassination
by someone allegedly swayed by the rhetoric
of conservative activists wanting tighter
border security and a stop to infringement
by the government upon individual liberty,
wouldn't you say? But then, committed
lefties like Sheriff Dupnik don't like to
confuse the issues with the facts; that just
make things more complicated, you see.
Left-wingers have been trying with increa-
sing desperation to brand the Tea Party and
conservatives in general as hateful, racist,
violence-prone radicals so as to silence
their main opposition and have the political
field to themselves. Sheriff Dupnik must
have been thinking of President Obama's
former Chief of Staff
Rahm Emmanuel's
advice to "never let a crisis go to waste",
especially, it seems, to demonize your
opposition.
As far as vitriolic rhetoric is concerned,
it is the Left which openly hopes for illness,
injury, and death for conservatives; remem-
ber when left-wing journalist Julianne Mal-
veaux publicly wished for conservative U.S.
Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas to
eat lots of eggs and other cholesterol-laden
food and die from a heart attack? It is the
Left which hurls racial and sexual epithets
at conservatives of color and of the female
gender; talk to conservative columnist (and
woman of Filipino descent) Michelle Malkin
about the hateful, slur-loaded e-mail and
phone calls she gets on a very regular basis,
not to mention the death threats that she and
her family have received over the years.
It is the Left which proclaims their hatred of
we conservatives, we Tea Party activists, yet
they accuse us of "hate speech". They tell us
"moderate your views" and move to the center
of the political spectrum. They tell us to "tone
down the rhetoric" while they crank up their
own in volume and poisonous content. Your
faithful Peasant is mighty sick of these hyp-
pocritical bullies accusing us on the Right of
doing the very things that they themselves do,
aren't you? In this blog we shall call the scum-
bags on their transgressions and rank hypocrisy,
while continuing to speak up for what we want
to have, which is limited, constitutional govern-
ment and respect, not contempt, for the people
and their wishes. We shall NOT be bullied into
silence!
Meanwhile, my dear readers, let us keep Rep.
Giffords and the rest of the wounded in our
prayers, along with their families and friends.
We wish the wounded a speedy and complete
recovery and comfort for those near and dear
to them in this harrowing time. We also wish
Judge Roll, little Christina Greene and the rest
of the dead peaceful repose, and comfort to
their near and dear as well. Finally, we pray
for justice to be served concerning the trial
of the crazed gunman who caused great pain
and suffering all around.
MEM
